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AUTHOR: 


BARNES,  ALBERT 


TITLE: 


LIFE  AT  THREESCORE 
AND  TEN 

PLACE: 

NEW  YORK 

DA  TE : 

[1871] 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES 
PRESERVATION  DEPARTMENT 

RTRT  TOnu  APHIC  MICROFORM  TARGET 


Master  Negative  ft 


Original  Material  as  Filmed  -  Existing  Bibliographic  Record 


;    248 
B2G 


Barnes,  Albert,  1798-1870. 

Life   at   threescore   and   ten.     By   Kev.   Albert  Barnes    ... 
New  York,  American  tract  society  [1871] 

14S  1).    15"°. 

"The  substance  of  the  following  discourse  was  delivered  in  the  First 
Presbyterian  church,  Philadelphia,  December  G,  1SG8." 


Restrictions  on  Use: 


I.  American  tract  society.A  ii.  Title. 


.All'. 


Library  of  Congress 


u 


32-3209!)  / 


BV4580.B33     1871 


218 


TECHNICAL  MICROFORM  DATA 

REDUCTION     RATIO: J_LJ<. 


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IMAGE  PLACEMENT:    lA   ^^   IB     IIB 

DATE     FILMED: ^ /<^zll'JJ^     INITIALS ■ JM^__ 

HLMEDBY:    RESEARCH  PUBLICATIONS.  INC  WOODDRIDGE,  CT      A 


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THREESCORE  AND  TEN, 


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REV.  ALBERT  BARNES, 


PHILADELPHIA. 


c      ,1 

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Pri^I.ISHED  BY  THE 
AMERICAN  TRACT  SOCIETY, 

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ENTKKKD.  according  to  Act  of  ^^<^^^  {llUrian  oTcou^rea ° 
Ameuican  Tuact  bociKXY,  111  the  Oihco  ot  tuo  i.iurari*ii  ui  v.     ^ 

at  Washiugtuu. 


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1 


TuK  substance  of  the  foUowiug  dis- 
course was  delivered  in  the  First  Pres- 
byterian Church,  Philadelphia,  Decem- 
ber 6, 1868,  and  was  soon  after  published 
at  the  request  of  friends.  It  was  revised 
by  the  author  for  the  American  Tract 
Society,  and  was  going  to  press  at  the 
time  of  his  lamented  decease,  December 

24,  1870. 

The  favor  implored  by  him  in  the  linos 
at  the  close  of  this  discourse,  page  148, 
was  kindly  granted,  in  his  peaceful  and 
almost  instantaneous  death  while  on  a 
visit  of  Christian  condolence  at  the  house 
of  a  friend. 


11 


LIFE 


AT 


THREESCORE  AND  TEN. 


THE  DAYS  OF  OUR  YEARS  ARE  THREE- 
SCORE YEARS  AND  TEN.   PSA.  90  :  lO. 

All  earthly  life,  so  far  as  we  have  an 
opportunity  of  observing  it,  has  an  outer 
limit ;  a  boundary  which  cannot  be 
passed.  Death  reigns,  and  apparently 
has  always  reigned,  in  our  world,  for 
there  is  not  now  in  the  air,  on  the  earth, 
or  in  the  waters,  a  living  thing  that 
existed  at  the  creation. 

This  limitation  in  regard  to  life  is  by 


R  LIFE    AT 

no  means  the  same  in  all  orders  of  be- 
ings.    Eacli  class  of  animals,  of  birds, 
of°lishes,  is  subject  to  its  own  law  in 
this  respect,  as  if  it  were  entirely  inde- 
pendent of  all  other  beings,  and  has  a 
limitation  of  its  own.    Life  may  be  al- 
most momentary  in  one  class,  as  in  the 
insect  that  sports  in  the  summer  sun  for 
an  hour  and  then  dies ;  it  may  extend, 
as  in  the  old  trees  that  stand  on  the 
African  or  Pacific  coast,  for  many  thou- 
sands of  years.      But  still,   there   is  a 
boundary  which  is  not  to  be  passed.     It 
is  not  the  same  in  the  horse,  in   the 
eagle,  in  the  elephant,  in  the  gazelle,  in 
the  humming-bird,  in  the  whale,  and  in 
man— in  the  oak  of  Bashan,  the  cedar 
of  Lebanon,  and  the  hyssop  that  springs 
out  of  the  wall— for  each  and  all  of 
these  have  their  separate  laws  of  limi- 
tation, and  that  which  belongs  to  one 


TnEEESCOUE   AND   TEN.  7 

cannot  be  transferred  to  another.     A 
boundary  has  been  fixed  in  each  and 
every  case  beyond  which  no  vigor  of 
frame,  no  tenacity  of  life,  no  devices  for 
restoring  the  wastes  in  the  animal  econ- 
omy, and  no  remedial  or  recuperative 
arrangements  can  carry  any  one.    Time 
docs  not  modify  this  law.    Improvements 
and   remedies  in  other  things  do  not 
affect  it,  or  produce  any  change.    The 
age  of  the  horse,  the  oak,  and  the  lion, 
is"  the  same  as  it  was  in  the  days  of 
Abraham,  and,  so  far  as  appears,  will 
remain  the  same  to  the  end  of  time.     So 
fixed  is  this  law  that  it  clearly  proves 
that  over  all  this  there  is  a  Presiding 
Mind ;  that  the  arrangement  is  the  result 
of  the  will  of  the  Great  Ruler  of  the 

world. 

Yet  though  the  period  of  life  in  dif- 
ferent orders  of  beings  is  so  varied,  it 


I 


g  LIFE   AT 

is  m  each  particular  and  separate  order 
so  r(!gular,  that  it  can  be  made  the  sub- 
ject of  most  accurate  calculation,  and 
can  be  laid  at  the  foundation  of  some 
of  the  most  important  arrangements  in 
society.    At  the  foundation  of  all  this 
there  is  an  important  general  law,  the 
knowledge  of  which  is  now  exerting  an 
important   influence    on    the   affairs   of 
men— a  law,  the  reason  of  which  no  one 
can  explain,  but  he  who  believes  in  the 
existence  and  the  superintending  provi- 
dence of  God.    It  is  now  established  as 
certain,  that  of  a  given  number  of  per- 
sons, almost  precisely  the  same  number 
will  die  in  each  year  at  the  same  period 
of  life,  and  even  ordinarily  by  the  same 
forms  of  disease.      In  like  manner,  it 
has  become  the  subject  of  most  accurate 
computation  that  almost  precisely  the 
same  losses  of  property  will  occur  by 


1 


THREESCORE   AND   TEN.  9 

sea  or  on  land -by  fire  or  by  ship- 
wreck—so that  the  regularity  of  such 
losses  can  be  made  the  basis  of  most 
important    pecuniary   calculations   and 
responsibilities.    This  science,  compar- 
ativclv  new,  is  the  foundation  of  all  the 
arrangements  in  annuity  companies,  m 
marine,  fire  and  life  insurance  compa- 
nies, the  operations  of  which  are  founded 
on  calculations  made   on  the   average 
oontinuauce  of  human  life,  and  the  prob- 
ability that  any  given  number  of  casual- 
ties will  occur,  or  that  any  given  num- 
ber of  persons  will  die  at  any  one  period 
of  life,  in  any  single  year.     So  accurate 
is  this  science  that  no  investments  are 
more  safe  than  those  which  are  based 
on  such  calculations,  and  that  there  is 
no  class  of  pecuniary  institutions  that 
arc  more  certainly  destined  to  become 
universal.     The  world  is  not  governed 


I'l 


10  LIFE   AT 

by  chance,  but  by  certain  laws,  and  the 
result  of  the  operations  of  insurance  com- 
panies will  tend,  like  our  study  of  the 
physical  laws  of  nature,  to  confirm  men 
more  and  more  in  the  belief  that  there 
is  a  God,  and  that  the  world  is  governed 
by  regular  laws. 

In  man  the  usual  limit  of  life  is 
"threescore  years  and  ten."  By  this 
it  is  not  meant,  of  course,  that  no  one 
ever  passes  over  that  line,  but  that  this 
is  the  ordinary  and  common  period  be- 
yond which  man  does  not  pass— as  there 
is  an  ordinary  and  fixed  limit  in  the 
age  of  the  horse,  the  lion,  the  eagle,  the 
humming-bird,  the  honey-bee.  There 
are  exceptions  to  most  general  laws,  but 
there  are  no  more  in  regard  to  the  life 
of  man  than  in  other  things. 

It  is  remarkable   that  this  was  the 
allotted  period  in  the  time  of  Moses,  if 


THKEESCOBE   AND  Ti;N.  11 

the  Psalm  from  which  the  text  is  taken 
was  written,  as  it  purports  to  have  been, 
by  him,  and  that  the  law  has  remained 
unchanged  to  the  present  time— j«st  as 
the  law  in  rega'rd  to  the  duration  of  life 
has  remained  the  same  m  regard  to  the 
inhabitants  of  the  air,  the  earth,  and  the 
waters.     The  life  of  the  lion  and  the 
eagle  has  neither  been  lengthened  nor 
abridged  during  that  period,  nor  have 
these  long  centuries  done  anything  to 
extend  or  diminish  the   length  of  life 
anywhere   in   the  animal  or  vegetable 

creation. 

This  fact  is  especially  remarkable  in 
man,  because  the  highest  talent  has 
been  exerted  to  fmd  out  some  method 
to  lengthen  his  existence  on  the  earth. 
One  profession,  found  in  all  countries, 
embracing  in  its  ranks  those  who  have 
been  among  the  most  eminent  in  learning 


» 


12  LIFE   AT 

and  skill,  has  been  especially  devoted 
to  this  subject :  to  the  inquiry  whether 
the  ordinary  causes  which  abridge  human 
life  could  not  be  modified  or  removed, 
and  whether  there  could  not  be  found 
in  nature   some  hidden  power  —  some 
*' Elixir  of  Life"— by  which  the  days 
of  man  might  be  multiplied  upon  the 
earth.     Yet  all  in  vain.     No  secret  in 
nature   has  been   discovered   to   check 
the  ravages  of  death,  and  to  make  man 
immortal;   and  it  is  equally  true  that 
no  secret  has  been  discovered  by  which 
the  settled  law  in  regard  to  the  general 
limit  of  life  can  be  changed,  or  by  which 
man  can  be  carried  liir  beyond  the  peri- 
od of  "threescore  and  ten."     In  noth- 
ing has  science  been  more  baffled  and 
rebuked  than  in  this;  and,  much  as  it 
has  done  to  remove  disease,  to  alleviate 
suffering,   to  administer  comfort  to  the 


Cl 


THREESCORE   AND   TEN.  13 

dying,  or  to  increase,  perhaps,  the  aver- 
age length  of  life,  it  has  done  absolutely 
nothing  to  change  the  fixed  boundary 
of  human  existence,  nor  is  there  now 
the  slightest  probability  that  it  will  do 
it  in  the  time  to  come.    The  tables  by 
which  the  calculations  in  life  annuities 
and  insurances  are  now  regulated,  and 
which  are  so  accurate,  will  be  as  certain 
a  basis  for  such  calculations  in  coming 
ages,  and  those  tables  will  continue  to 
mock,  as  they  do  now,  all  the  boasted 
achievements  and  promises  of  science. 

In  regard  to  man,  and  especially  to 
man  considered  as  a  fallen  and  sinful 
being,  and  with  reference  to  the  prob- 
lem of  redemption,  many  reasons  might 
be  suggested  why  the  usual  limit  of  his 
probation  should  have  been  fixed  at 
threescore  years  and  ten. 
The   great    purposes   to    be   accom- 


14  LIFE   AT 

plislicd  in  the  world  can  be  thus  better 
secured  than  they  could  be  by  one  which 
would  greatly  protract  the  life  of  man. 
The  present  arrangement  has   all  the 
advantage   of   bringing  varied  powers 
upon  the  earth  to  meet  the  new  circum- 
stances of  the  world  in  the  development 
of  the  divine  plans  ;  the  advantage,  per- 
haps,  of  bringing   more  actors  on   the 
stage,  and  of  preparing  more  immortal 
beings  for  a  future  world  ;  the  advan- 
tage of  greatly  multiplying  the  number 
of  the  redeemed,  and  consequently  of 
glorifying  the  Redeemer  and  augment- 
ing the  joys  of  heaven;  the  advantage 
of    preventing    the   evils   w^hich   would 
arise  from  a  vast  accumulation  of  wealth 
and  power  in  the  hands  of  a  few  indi- 
viduals, and  creating  a  permanent  tyr- 
annv  in  the  hand  of  a  few  men— it  being 
far  better  for  the  liberty  and  happiness 


THREESCORE   AND   TEN.  15 

of  the  mass  of  men  that  a  man  of  accu- 
mulated or  accumulating  wealth  should 
lose  his  hold  on  his  property  at  the  age 
of  "threescore  and   ten,"   and   that  it 
should   be  distributed  in  society,  than 
that  he   should  be   allowed   to   go   on 
absorbing  the  wealth  of  the  world  for  a 
thousand  years— as  it  was  of  advantage 
to  the  world  that  Xerxes,  CoBsar,  Alex- 
ander and  Napoleon  should  die  rather 
than  that  they  should  live  to  confirm 
and  establish  a  tyranny  for  centuries. 
It  is  an  advantage  to  the  world  that 
men   should    die;   that,   having  accom- 
plished the  great  purpose  of  life,  they 
should  give  place  to  others;  and  that 
what  they  have  gained  in  any  respect 
should  2:0  into  the  common  stock  for  the 
good  of  the  world  at  largo,  and  for  the 
benefit  of   coming   generations,   rather 
than  that  it  should  be  retained  by  them- 


H 


■aB" 


Ig  LIFE   AT 

selves  under  the  form  of  vast  monopo- 
lies. 

At  the  same  time  it  is  to  be  remarked 

that  a  man  will  be  more  likely  to  attend 
to   the   interests  of  his  soul   when  he 
knows  that  the  affairs  of  the  world  arc 
of  so  little  importance  to  him,  and  that 
all  that  he  can  acquire  must  soon— very 
soon— pass  into  other  hands,  than  he 
would  if  he  felt  that  what  he  could  gain 
would  continue  to  be  his,  and  would 
be  constantly  increasing  for  a  thousand 
years.    As  man,  therefore,  is  a  fallen 
being ;  as  his  great  interests  lie  beyond 
the  grave ;  as  this  is  essentially  a  world 
of  probation ;  as  all  that  any  one  can 
gain  here  is  a  trifle  of  no  value  com- 
pared with  the  great  interests  beyond 
the  tomb;  as  it  is  desirable  that  he 
should  constantly  feel  and  realize  this ; 
as  it  is  important  that  all   the  means 


THREESCORE   AND   TEN.  17 

possible  should  be  used  to  fix  his  atten- 
tion on  these  facts,  and  to  prevent  his 
jeoparding  his  eternal  interests  by  neg- 
lect and  delay;  and  as  the  period  of 
seventy  years  furnishes  ample  time  to 
prepare  for  the  world  beyond,  and  to 
secure  the  salvation  of  the  soul,  we  can 
see  that  it  is  a  wise  and  benevolent 
arrangement  by  which  this  should  be 
the  general  limit  of  human  life.    Man 
must  be  content  with  this.     He  has  no 
power  to  remove  the  limit.      Science, 
time,  experience,  prudence,  medicines, 
do  nothing  to  modify  this  law  of  our 
being,  or  to  secure  to  us  any  longer 
duration  on  earth  than  God  has  assigned 

us. 

If  an  apology  were  demanded  of  one 
who  has  reached  the  period  of  three- 
score and  ten,  for  his  presuming  to  refer 
to  himself  and  to  his  views  of  life,  it 

O 

Threescore  and  Tuu.  ** 


i 


m 

I 


18  LIFE   AT 

miglit  be  found,  perhaps,  in  the  follow- 
ing considerations : 

1.  That  though,  in  the  aggregate,  the 
number  of  men  who  reach  that  period 
of  life  is  not  small,  yet  almost  none  give 
utterance  in  any  public  or  permanent 
form  to  their  own  views  and  impressions 
in  regard  to  that  period  of  life,  or  to 
the  results  of  their  own  observation  and 
experience  in  reference  to  human  affairs, 
church  or  state,  during  the  time  through 
which  they  have  lived. 

2.  That  the  young,  for  the  most  part, 
hope  to  reach  that  period,  and  it  may 
be  presumed  to  be  a  matter  not  without 
interest  to  them,  to  know  how  life  will 
seem  to  them  when  they  reach  it.  It 
may  be  supposed  to  be  useful  to  them, 
in  forming  their  own  plans,  to  place 
themselves,  as  for  as  possible,  in  that 
position,  and  from  that  ''standpoint"  to 


THREESCORE   AND   TEN.  19 

inquire  what  is  worth  living  for  and 
what  not ;  what  will  then  commend  itself 
to  them  as  wise  and  good  and  what  not ; 
what  the  world  is  in  reality,  as  com- 
pared with  what  it  seems  to  be  when  the 
colorings  of  a  youthful  imagination  are 
thrown  over  it  in  anticipation.  Every 
young  man  has  a  right  to  catechise  an 
aged°man  as  to  what  life  is ;  what  the 

world  is. 

3.  There  is  often  an  impression  that 

old  men  take  a  gloomy  view  of  life: 

that  the  result  of  their  experience  is 

merely  disappointment ;  that  all  which 

they  have  to  say  is  that  the  visions  of 

early  years  have  vanished,  leaving  noth- 

ing  substantial  or  worth  living  for ;  that 

the  world  to  them  is  gloomy,  and  that 

the  effect  of  their  experience  has  been 

to  make  them  sullen,  sour,  and  morose ; 

that  they  see  only  decay  and  ruin  around 


20  LIFE   AT 

them;  that  as  age  comes  upon   them 
they  see  in  religion  only  corruption  of 
doctrine,  in  morals  only  degeneracy,  in 
political  affairs  only  a  weakening  of  the 
powers  of  just  government,  in  science  in 
its  boasted  advances  only  that  which 
tends  to  sap  the  foundation  of  true  reli- 
gion, and  which  threatens  the  overthrow 
of  all  that  hitherto  has  commanded  the 
assent  of  the  wisest  and  the  best  of  the 
race,  and  which  is  essential  to  the  well- 
being  of  society. 

4.  Every  man  who  has  reached  that 
period  of  life  oiirjU  to  be  able  to  say 
something  which  will  be  useful  to  those 
who  are  forming  their  plans,  and  who 
are  looking  out  on  the  great  world  as 
the  theatre  of  future  action.  He  has 
indeed  lived  in  vain  who  has  passed 
so  many  years  upon  the  earth  if  he  has 
gained  nothing  that  may  be  of  use  as 


THKEESCOKE   AND  TEN.  21 

f 

counsel  to  those  who  are  to  come  after 
liim_who  has  laid  up  nothing  that  will 
add  to  the  common  stock  of  human 
knowledge,  or  contribute  to  human  im- 
provement and  to  the  progress  of  the 

world. 

5.  As  a  further  apology  for  speaking 
in  the  manner  in  which  I  propose  to  do. 
it  may  be  added  that  most  of  the  things 
which  I  shall  say  might  be  spoken  by 
one  man  as  well  as  another,  at  my  time 
of  life.    It  is  the  mere  fact  that  one  has 
reached  that  period  which  entitles  him 
to  the  privilege  of  speaking  to  a  coming 
generation,  or  to  give  utterance  to  the 
results  of  his  observation  and  experi- 
ence, and  not  anything  which  has  been 
peculiar  in  his  own  history,  or  because 
he  has  any  special  claim  to  be  heard  by 
the  world.    There  was  force  as  well  as 
obvious  fitness  in  what  the  young  man 


tirttl!" 


22  LIFE   AT 

Elihu,  as  recorded  in  the  book  of  Job, 
said,  "Days  should  speak,  and  multi- 
tude  of  years   should   teach   wisdom.-' 
Job   32  :  7.      It   is   a   common   feeling 
among  men  that  those  who  are  about 
to  leave  the  world  should  be  allowed  to 
speak,  and  that  a  respectful  attention 
should    be    given    to    their   utterances, 
whether   Ihose   utterances  are   on   the 
calm  bed  of  death,  or  are  the  language 
of  the  martyr  at  the   stake;  whether 
they  are  the  utterances  of  age,  or  of 
the  criminal  about  to  meet  the  just  sen- 
tence of  the  law.     For  myself,  what  I 
shall  say,  if  I  shall  say  anything  that 
will  be   worthy  of  attention,   will   be 
derived  mostly  from  the  mere  fact  that 
the  seventy  years  which  have  thus  been 
travelled  over  are  among  the  most  event- 
ful that  have  occurred  in  the  history  of 
the  world,  and  that  those  years  them- 


THKEESCOEE   AND   TEN.  23 

selves  utter  most  solemn  counsels  to 
those  who  are  to  fill  up  the  next  seventy 
years  of  the  world's  history. 

He  who  has  reached  this  period  must 
regard  himself  as  now  entering  on  the 
last  stage  of   his  existence   on   earth. 
He  has  reached  the  summit  of  life.     He 
cannot  expect  or  hope  to  rise  higher. 
He  has  come  to  the  top  of  the  hill,  and 
must  soon  pass  over  to  the  other  side. 
He  may  find  there— or  may  think  he 
has  found,  as  one  sometimes  does  when 
he  ascends  a  mountain— a  little  spot 
which   seems   to   be  level   ground  — a 
small  area  of  table-land-a  plateau— 
that  spreads  out  a  little  distance  around 
him.     If  lie  is  permitted  to  walk  for  a 
few  years  on  that  plateau— that  table- 
land—that level  spot— it  is  all  that  he 
can  now  hope  for.     He  can  look  for  no 
greater  degree  of  vigor  of  body  or  of 


24 


LIFE   AT 


mind;  for  no  greater  ability  to  labor. 
Tliat  little  spot  of  level  ground  which 
he  seems  to  have  found  on  the  summit, 
spreads  out  before  him  with  much  that 
is  inviting.      He  could  not   deny  that 
he   would,   on  many  accounts,   love  to 
linger  there,  and  extend  his  walk  far- 
ther  than  he  can  reasonably  hope  that 
he  will  be  permitted  to  do.     He  cannot 
conceal  it  from  himself  that  though  this 
little  spot  seems  to  be  level,  yet  that  it 
will  soon  begin  to  slope  in  the  other 
direction,  or  that  he  may  soon  come  to 
a  precipice  down  which   he   may  sud- 
denlv  fall,  to  rise  no  more.     The  ascent 
to  that  little  level  or  plateau  was  grad- 
ual and  long.     While  ascending,  it  was 
uncertain   whether    the   summit   would 
ever  be   reached   at  all,   and  what   it 
would   be    found    to   be   should    it    be 
reached ;    whether   it  would   be    found 


I 


THREESCORE   AND   TEN.  25 

covered  with  clouds  and  agitated  with 
storms,  or  whether  it  would  be  serene 
and  calm  and  clothed  with  sunshine. 

So  one  ascends  a  lofty  mountain.    The 
summit  lies  in  the  distance,  now  with 
bright  sunshine  settling  on  it,  and  now 
covered  and  obscured   by  clouds,   and 
wholly  shut  out  from  view.     In  the  as- 
cent, as  he  passes  from  one  eminence  to 
another,  now  he  enjoys  a  wide  and  varied 
and  beautiful  prospect ;  now  he  "fears  as 
he  enters  into  a  cloud  ;"  now  the  cloud 
lifts  itself  and  discloses  a  prospect  of  dis- 
tant woods  and  fields  and  rivers  and  vil- 
lages and  farmhouses,  so  varied  and  so 
beautiful  as  to  reward  him  for  all  his 
toil  thus  far;  and  now  a  cloud  settles 
again  on  his  path,  and  the  ascent  becomes 
more  difiBcult,  more  rocky,  more  steep ; 
and  then  the  cloud  breaks  away  and  the 
summit  shows  itself  near,  and  his  steps 


H 


26  LIFE   AT 

are  lighter,  and  his  heart  is  more  buoy- 
ant, as  if  all  the  difficulties  were  soon  to 
be  overcome.     The  summit  is  at  last 
reached.     It  may  be  a  sharp  point  of 
rock ;  it  may  be  utterly  barren  ;  it  may 
be  covered  with  perpetual  snow  ;  it  may 
be  enveloped  in  clouds,  and  there  may 
be  a  raging  storm  of  hail  and  sleet ;  it 
may  be  a  place  so  cold,  so  dreary,  so 
barren,  that  he  at  once  turns  his  footsteps 
and  hastens  down  the  path  that  he  trod 
in  the  ascent:  or  he  may  find  there  a 
level  plain  ;  he  may  have  a  glorious  sun- 
shine ;  he  may  have  wide  and  beautiful 
prospects  — distant   hills   and    valleys, 
streams  and  lakes  and  waterfalls,  towns 
and  villages  and  cultivated  farms   all 
around  him,  and  the  blue  ocean  in  the 
distance,  and  he  may  linger  there,  and 
wish  that  he  could  linger  longer— fully 
rewarded  for  all  his  toil  and  fatigue  in 


s 

i 


.i 


THREESCORE   AND   TEN.  27 

the  ascent.  The  ascent  was  long  and 
slow  and  gradual.  The  descent  must  be 
precipitous,  quick,  sudden.  The  termi- 
nation is  not  far  oK—ihe  grave. 

Of  one  arrived  at  advanced  years,  a 
young  man  would  have  the  right  to  ask, 
'•How  does  life  seem  now?  And  how 
ought  such  views  as  one  takes  at  the  age 
Df  threescore  and  ten  to  influence  those 
who  are  just  entering  on  their  course,  in 
reo-ard  to  their  own  views,  plans,  and 
purposes  ?  In  what  way  should  a  young 
man  form  his  own  plans  if  he  would  make 
that  experience  his  own  ?  In  what  way 
would  a  man  who  has  reached  that  pe- 
riod form  his  plans  of  living  if  he  could 
now  begin  life  anew  ?'^ 

I  will  tell  you,  in  as  few  words  as  pos- 
sible, how  I  feel  at  this  period  of  life. 
What  I  shall  say,  I  trust,  will  not  make 
you  gloomy,  or  dispirited,  or  sad.     It 


28  LIFE   AT 

will  not  lead  you  to  tliiiik  tliat  there  is 
notliing  worth  living  for,  though  I  would 
hope  that  it  might  lead  those  who  are 
setting  out  on  life  to  modify  their  plans 
by  a  contemplation  of  the  feelings  and 
views  which  will  come  over  their  own 
minds  when  the  plans  of  life  are  about 
to  close. 


THREESCORE   AND  TEN. 


29 


■■ 


I. 


The  first  thought  is,  that  one  who  has 
reached  this  period  has  come  to  an  end 
of  all  his  plans,  arrangements,  and  pur- 
poses,  in  regard  to  this  world.     The 
schemes  of  life,  whatever  they  may  have 
been,  are  ended.    This  is  to  him  a  new 
thought— a  thought  which  he  has  never 
experienced  before,  and  of  which  he  has 
not  been  before  in  a  situation  to  form  a 
conception  ;  and  this  thought  I  would  be 
glad  to  impress  on  the  minds  of  those 
who  are  younger :   that  the  time  must 
soon  come  when  all  their  earthly  plans 
must  be  ended  ;  when  there  will  be  no 
new  schemes  for  them  to  form,  no  new 
purposes  of  life  to  execute. 


30 


LIFE   AT 


It  is,  and  must  be,  difficult  for  those 
who  are  yet  in  the  vigor  of  life  to  form 
a  conception  of  the  state  of  mind  when 
this  becomes  a  reality ;  when  a  man  feels 
as  he  has  never  felt  before,  that  there  is 
little  more  for  him  to  do.     But  though  it 
may  be  difficult  to  form  a  conception  of 
a  condition  so  different  from  what  he 
has  as  yet  experienced,  it  may  not  be 
unprofitable  to  advert  for  a  moment  to 
the  fact,  and  to  state,  as  clearly  as  pos- 
sible, what  the  feeling  is,  when  this  con- 
viction first  comes  over  the  mind. 
'    A  man  rarely  forms  any  new  plans  of 
life  at  seventy  years  of  age.     He  enters 
no  new  profession  or  calling,  he  embarks 
in  no  new  business,  he  undertakes  to 
write  no  new  book,  he  forms  no  new 
friendships,  alliances,    or   partnerships: 
he  cannot  now  feel,  as  he  once  could, 
that  on  the  failure  of  one  plan  he  may 


THKEESCOKK   AND   TEN.  31 

i,ow  embark  in  another  with  better  prom- 
ise of  success. 

Hitherto  all  along  his  course  of  life  he 
has  felt  that,  if  he  became  conscious  that 
he  had  mistaken  his  calling,  or  if  he  was 
unsuccessful  in  that  calling,  he  might  em- 
brace another ;  if  he  was  disappointed  or 
failed  in  one  line  of  business,  he  might 
resume  that  line,  or  embark  in  another, 
with  vigor  and  hope ;  for  he  had  youth 
on  his  side,  and  he  had,  or  thought  he 
had,  many  years  before  him.     If  one 
friend  proved  unfaithful,  he  might  form 
other  friendships ;  if  he  failed  in  his  cho- 
sen profession,  the  world  was  still  before 
him  where  to  choose,  aiid  there  were  still 
many  paths  that  might  lead  to  affluence 
or  to  honor ;  if  he  lost  one  battle,  the 
case  was  not  hopeless,  for  he  might  yet 
be  honored  on  some  other  field  with  vic- 
tory and  be  crowned  with  glory. 


32  LIFE   AT 

But  usually,  wheu  a  man  reaches  the 
period  of  "  threescore  ancV  ten  years,"  all 
these  things  lie  in  the  past.     His  pur- 
poses have  all  been  formed  and  ended. 
If  he  sees  new  plans  and  purposes  that 
seem  to  him  to  be  desirable  or  important 
to  be  executed  ;  if  there  are  new  fields 
of  honor,  wealth,  science,  ambition,  or 
benevolence,  they  arc  not  for  him,  they 
are  for  a  younger  and  a  more  vigorous 
generation.     It  is  true  that  this  feeling 
may  come  over  a  man  at  any  period  of 
life.     In  the  midst  of  his  way,  in  the 
successful  prosecution  of  the  most  bril- 
liant purposes,  in  the  glow  and  ardor 
attending  the  most  attractive  schemes, 
the  hand  of  disease  or  of  death  may  be 
laid  on  him,  and  he  be  made  to  feel  that 
all  Tiis  plans  are  ended— a  thought  all 
the  more  difficult  to  bear  because  he  has 
not  been  prepared  for  it  by  the  gradual 


THUEESCOEE   AKD   TEN,  33 

.Wtening  of  his  hairs  and  the  infirmities 

^'Hikiah.  king  of  Israel,  exp.^.^ 
ttc  feelings  of  such  a  man,  when  m  the 

vigor  of  his  years  and  in  the  m.ds  of  In. 
IcLmes,  he  was  suddenly  smitten  by 
disease,  and  brought  apparently  nea   the 

erave      "  1  said  in  the  cutting  off  of  my 
lavs,  I  shall  go  to  the  gates  of  the  g^ve: 

I  ;.  deprived  of  the  residue  oMny 
years.  Mine  age  is  departed,  and  s 
Amoved  from  me  as  a  shephera    tenU 

I  have  cut  off  like  a  weaver  m>  bfe  •  he 
tmcutmeoffwith  pining  sickness:  from 

L  even  to  night  wilt  thou  make  an  end 
nf  me  The  grave  cannot  praise  thee  ; 
derdot^celebrate  thee:  they  that 

.do^vn  into  the  pit  cannot  hope  for  thj 

truth"     Isa.  cli.  38. 

A  few  remarks  may   illustrate  this 


point. 


3 


i 


34  LIFE   AT 

1.  It  was  a  great  problem  so  to  frame 
the  world,  and  so  to  endow  man,  as  to 
secure  the  activity  of  the  race  ;  and  there 
are  two  great  laws  by  which  that  activ- 
ity is  secured.     The  one  is,  that  in  each 
Jd  e.ery  generation  there  is  enough  fo,- 
all  men  to  do  ;  the  other  is,  that  there  is 
at  any  time  talent  enough  to  accomplish 
all  that  is  needjal  to  he  done.     In  the  nu- 
merous and  various  professions  and  call- 
ino-s  of  life  ;  in  agriculture,  commerce,  the 
mechanic  arts,  the  fine  arts  ;  in  the  pur- 
suits of  literature  and  science;   in  the 
education  of  the  young  ;  in  the  necessary 
attendance  on  the  sick,  and  the  care  of 
the  infirm  and  the  helpless ;  in  extract- 
ing ores  and  the  precious  metals  from  the 
earth ;  in  levelling  forests,  and  in  making 
roads,  bridges,  and  canals ;  in  the  works 
of  architecture,  ship-building,   and  ma- 
chines for  labor ;  in  navigating  rivers  and 


4  ► 


1 


THREESCORE  AND  TEN.  35 

oceans,  there  is  always  enough  for  any 
one  generation  to  do :  so  much  to  do  that 
none  need  be  unemployed  or  idle. 

At  the  same  time,  there  is  always  tal- 
ent enough  on  the  earth  to  accomplish 
what  is  needful  to  be  done.     If,  in  addi- 
tion to  the  usual  employments  of  man- 
kind, any  great   emergency  arises;  if 
society  has  reached  a  point  where  it  is 
to  be  raised  to  a  higher  level,  and  the 
ordinary  measures  of  human  endowment 
are  not  equal  to  the  emergency,  higher 
talent    adapted    to    the    emergency   is 
brought  upon  the  stage,  and  the  affairs 
of  the  world  are  raised  to  that  higher 
level,  and  move  forward  on  that  higher 
level    till    another    similar    emergency 
arises.      Columbus,    Galvani,    Galileo, 
Newton,  Watt,  Fulton,  Morse,  appear  at 
the  proper  time  ;  for  God  creates  great 
intellects  when  he  pleases,  and  brings 


36  LIFE   AT 

them  upon  the  world  to  carry  out  his 
own  great  plans,  when  the  world  is  ripe 
for  them.  No  enterprise  fails  for  want 
of  talent ;  no  created  talent  need  be  idle 
fol'  want  of  employment. 

2.  Within  a  limited  range  men  are  so 
endowed  that  they  may  succeed  perhaps 
almost  equally  well  in  one,  or  two,  or 
three,  or  four  professions  or  callings.* 
It  is  implied  in  this  statement  that  that 
range  is  not  large.  A  man  may  be  a 
farmer,  or  a  mechanic,  or  a  merchant,  or 
a  sailor,' and  possibly  he  might  succeod 
in  either  of  these  vocations.  He  may, 
therefore,  make  his  choice  between  them, 
or  may,  to  a  limited  extent,  change  from 

♦  This  was  true  of  Michael  A.ngelo.  On  his  tomb, 
in  the  church  of  Santa  Croce,  in  Florence,  are  in- 
Bcribed  the  words : 

"  Michaeli  Angelo  Bonavatio, 
E  vetusta  Simoniorum  familia, 
Sculptori,  Piciori,  et  ArchUecio, 
Fuiiia  omnibus  notissiino."' 


THREESCORE   AND   TEN.  37 

one  to  another;  that  is,  if  unsuccessful 
in  one,  he  may  find  success  in  another, 
or  if  any  particular  emergency  in  the 
world^s  affairs  shall  make  an  additional 
number  necessary  in  one  occupation,  that 
emergency  may  be  met  by  this  adapted- 
ness  to  different  employments— this^toy, 
or  room  for  free  action,  in  the  wheels  by 
which  the  affairs  of  the  world  are  moved. 
But  no  one  can  succeed  equally  well  in 
all  the  employments  of  life.    A  man  must, 
as  a  general  law,  be  a  farmer,  or  a  me- 
chanic, or  a  merchant,  or  a  sailor,  or  a 
professional  man ;  he  must  be  either  a 
lawyer,  or  a  physician,  or  a  clergyman ; 
he  must  be  either  a  poet,  or  an  orator, 
or  a  man  of  science— he  cannot  be  all. 
There  have  been  a  few  men  of  so  di- 
versified talent  that  they  have  secured, 
in  each  of  three  or  four  departments  of 
science,  what  would  have  made  them 


3S  LIFE    AT 

eminent  if  they  had  been  equally  distin- 
guished  in  any  one  department;  such 
men  have  been  rare  in  the  world. 

It  was  necessary,  in  order  to  secure 
the  accomplishment  of  the  great  purposes 
of  society,  that  there  should  be  this  play 
in  the  endowments  of  man ;  that  it  should 
be  so  arranged  that  success  might  be 
secured  in  any  one  employment  within 
this  limited  range ;  that  there  might  be, 
to  a  certain  extent,  room  for  a  choice  in 
a  profession ;  that  there  might  be  enough 
talent  upon  the  earth  at  any  one  time  to 
accomplish  all  the  purposes  of  society, 
and  that  it  might  be  certain  that  all  these 
various  callings  and  professions  would  be 

filled. 

3.  It  is  further  to  be  remarked,  that 
men  are  so  endowed  with  propensities 
towards  a  particular  calling,  or  with  such 
an  inclination  towards  a  particular  call 


THUEESCOEE    AKD   TEN.  39 

ing,  as  to  make  it  certain  that  what  is 
necessary  to  be  done  will  be  done.    This 
great  matter  has  not  been  left  to  chance. 
God  designed  that  all  these  professions 
and  callings  should  be  filled,  and  hence 
he  made  it  certain  in  the  very  constitu- 
tion of  men,  and  in  the  arrangements  of 
society,  that  that  purpose  should  be  ac- . 
complished.     Hence  it  is  that  there  are 
always  those  who  are  willing  to  cultivate 
the  earth;  to  engage  in  the  mechanic 
arts;    to    navigate    rivers,    lakes,    and 
oceans;  to  dig  canals;  to  explore  un- 
known regions;   to  be  the  pioneers  in 
extending  the  limits  of  civilization ;  to 
perform  surgical  operations;  to  attend 
in  the  hospitals  for  the  blind,  the  dumK 
the  insane ;  to  minister  to  the  wants  of 
the  sick  and  the  dying  ;  nay,  to  engage 
in  the  most  humble  and  menial  employ- 
ments.   No  profession   or  calling  Ian- 


40  LIFE  AT 

giiishes  because  there  are  none  wlio  are 
willing  to  engage  in  it;  no  interest  of 
society  suffers  because  it  is  too  laborious, 
or  too  perilous,  or  too  humble,  or  too 
painful  to  be  performed. 

As  an  illustration  of  this  thought,  I 
may  refer  to  the  case  of  commerce — the 
necessity  that  there  should  be  sailors  in 
the  world.  There  are  few  parents,  it 
any,  who  would  desire  that  their  sons 
should  be  seamen ;  there  are  few  who  in 
fact  do  not  oppose  it  when  their  sons 
manifest  a  preference  for  the  occupation 
of  a  sailor.  Yet  the  navigation  of  the 
ocean,  the  intercourse  of  nations  by  sea, 
the  pursuits  of  commerce,  are  indispen- 
sable for  the  advancement  of  the  race 
and  the  good  of  mankind.  God  designs 
that  there  shall  be,  in  every  age,  persons 
in  large  number  who  will  be  willing  to 
spend  their  lives  on  the  ocean,  and  hence 


THREESCORE   AND   TEN. 


41 


i 


there  is  among  the  young,  in  each  gen- 
eration, a  sufficient  number  who  mani- 
fest an  early  propensity  for  the  life  of  a 
sailor;  and  hence,  too,  when  this  idea 
takes  possession  of  the  mind  of  a  boy, 
nothing  will  ordinarily  turn  him  from  his 
purpose.  No  promise  of  ease  or  comfort 
or  a  more  lucrative  business  on  land,  no 
attractions  of  home,  no  love  of  friends, 
no  prospect  of  honor  or  of  affluence  in 
another  calling,  will  turn  him  from  his 
purpose,  or  drive  the  thought  from  his 
mind.  God  thus,  in  the  furtherance  of 
his  own  purposes,  secures  what  could  not 
otherwise  be  secured,  by  laying  this  pur- 
pose and  this  desire  in  the  minds  of  as 
many  of  each  generation  as  are  neces- 
sary to  navigate  the  seas  and  to  keep  up 
the  commerce  of  the  world. 

4.  In  accordance  with   these  princi- 
ples, a  man  may,  within  a  very  limited 


^  LIFE   AT 

range,  make  a  change  in  his  profession. 
If  he  is  unsuccessful  in  that  calling  which 
he  has  chosen ;  if  he  finds  that  the  pro- 
fession is  already  fnll ;  if  he  discovers 
that  he  is  not  fitted  for  it,  and  is  not  able 
to  succeed  in  it,  he  may,  in  early  life  and 
within  a  limited  range,  exchange  it  for 
another,  and  within  that  range  may  find 
a  door  of  usefulness  or  of  honor  still  open 
to  him.    The  young  farmer  may  become 
a  merchant  or  a  student ;  he  who  has 
been  trained  to  the  mechanic  arts  may 
become  a  member  of  one  of  the  learned 
professions ;  or  he  who  has  been  destined 
by  his  early  circumstances,  or  by  pa- 
rental purpose,  to  a  humble  occupation, 
may  rise  to  the  higher  walks  of  life,  and 
make  his  name  known  abroad  in  his  own 
or  in  foreign  lands.    But  no  man  can 
rifely  venture  often  on  such  a  change. 
One  such  change  may  peril  nothing  ;  per- 


THEEESCOEE    AXD   TEN.  43 

haps  a  second  would  not  endanger  the 
great  ends  of  life,  but  beyond  this  no 
man  is  safe.  Life  is  too  short  to  make 
many  experiments  of  this  kind  ;  and  be- 
yond what  has  now  been  suggested,  life 
would  become  vacillating,  and  would 
pass  away  with  no  fixed  purpose,  and  in 
the  end  man  would  have  accomplished 

nothing. 

5.  To  him,  however,  who  has  reached 
the  period  of  threescore  and  ten  years, 
no  such  change  is  usually  possible ;  no 
such  new  plan  to  be  entered  on.     The 
purpose   of   life    is   accomplished;   the 
changes  have  been  all  passed  through. 
There  is  no  new  profession  to  be  chosen ; 
there  are  no  new  plans  to  be  formed ; 
there  is  no  new  distinction  to  be  acquir- 
ed ;  there  are  no  books  to  be  written,  no 
houses  to  be  built,  no  fields  to  be  culti- 
-  vated,  no  forests  to  be  levelled,  no  works 


I 

w 


44  /      ^      LIFE    AT 

of  avt  that  are  to  be  entered  on.     Pain- 
ful as  the  thought  may  be,  the  business 
walks  of  life  have  no  place  for  the  aged 
man ;  there  is  no  place  for  him  in  the 
social  circles  of  the  gay,  in  the  mercan- 
tile calling,  at  the  bar,  in  the  medical 
profession,  in  the  pulpit,  on  the  bench, 
in  the  senate-chamber,  in  embassies  to 
foreign  courts.     Distinctions  and  honors 
are  no  longer  to  be  divided  between 
him  and  his  competitors ;  and  the  accu- 
mulating wealth  of  the  world  is  no  more 
to  be  the  subject  of  partnership  between 
him   and    others.      Without   plan   now 
except  as  to  the  future  world ;  his  old 
companions,    rivals,   and    friends    hav- 
ing fallen  by  the  way ;  the  active  pur- 
suits of  life  and  the  offices  of  trust  and 
honor  now   in  other  hands;   the   busy 
world  not  caring  for  his  aid,  and  hoping 
nothing  from  him,  it  is  his  now— except 


^li 


THKEESCOKE   AND   TEN.  45 

as  far  as  the  friends  of  earlier  years 
may  have  been  spared  to  him,  or  as  he 
may  have  secured  the  respect  of  the 
new  generation  that  is  coming  on  the 
stage  of  action,  or  as  he  may  do  good 
by  matured  wisdom  in  counsel,  or  by 
the  distribution  of  wealth  accumulated 
in  other  years,  or  by  an   example  of 
gentleness,  meekness,  and  patience  in 
the  infirmities  of  age,  illustrating  the 
influence  of  religion  and  the  blessedness 
of  hope  as  he  walks  tremblingly  on  the 
verge  of  the  tomb— to  tread  his  solitary 
way,  already  more  than  half  forgotten, 
to  tho  grave.     He  has  had  his  day,  and 
the  world  has  nothing  more  to  give  him 
or  to  hope  from  him. 

Most  men  in  active  life  look  forward, 
with  fond  anticipation,  to  a  time  when 
the  cares  of  life  will  be  over,  and  when 
thev  will  be  released  from  its  responsi- 

4b 


^ 


I 


LIFE   AT 

bilities   and   burdens;   if   not   with   an 
absolute  desire  that  such  a  time  should 
come,  yet  with  a  feeling  that  it  will  be 
a  relief  when  it  does  come.    Many  an 
hour  of  anxiety  in  the  counting-room; 
many  an  hour  of  toil  in  the  workshop 
or  on  the  farm ;  many  an  hour  of  weari- 
ness on  the  bench ;  many  a  burdened 
hour  in  the  great  offices  of  state,  and 
many  an  hour  of  exhaustion  and  solici- 
tude' in  professional  life,  is  thus  relieved 
by  the  prospect  of  rest— of  absolute 
rest— of  entire  freedom  from  responsi- 
bility.   What  merchant  and  professional 
man,  what  statesman,  does  not  look  for- 
ward to  such  a  time  of  repose,  and  anti- 
cipate a  season— perhaps  a  long  one— 
of  calm  tranquillity  before  life  shall  cud ; 
and  when  the  time  approaches,  though 
the  hope  often  proves  fallacious,  yet  its 
approach  is  not  unwelcome.     Diocletian 


t 


i 


THKEESCOKE   ASD   TEN.  47 

and  Charles  V.  descended  from  their 
thrones  to  seek  repose,  the  one  in  pri- 
vate life,  and  the  other  in  a  cloister; 
and  the  aged  judge,  merchant,  or  pas- 
tor, welcomes  the  time  when  he  feels 
that  the  burden  which  he  has  long  borne 
may  be  committed  to  younger  men. 

Yet  when  the  time  of  absolute  rest 
comes,  it   is  different  from  what  had 
been  anticipated.    There  is,  to  the  sur- 
prise,  perhaps,   of  all  such  men,   this 
new,  this  strange  idea;  an  idea  which 
they  never  had  before,  and  which  did 
not  enter  their  anticipations:  that  they 
have  now  nothing  to  live  for;  that  they 
have  no  motive  for  effort;  that  they 
have  no  plan  or  purpose  of  life.    They 
seem   now   to    themselves,   perhaps  to 
others,  to  have  no  place  in  the  world ; 
no  right  in  it.     Society  has  no  place  for 
them,   for  it  has  nothing  to  confer  on 


^, 


4S 


LIFE   AT 


them,  and  they  can  no  longer  make  a 
place  for  themselves.     General  Wash- 
ington, when  the  war  of  Independence 
was  over,  and  he  had  returned  to  Mount 
Vernon,  is  said  to  have  felt  "lost,"  be- 
cause he  had  not  an  army  to  provide 
for  daily ;  and  Charles  V.,  so  far  from 
finding  rest  in  his  cloister,  amused  him- 
self, as  has  been  commonly  supposed, 
in  trying  to  make  clocks  and  watches 
run  together,  and  so  far  from  actually 
withdrawing  from  the  affairs  of  state- 
miserable  in  his  chosen  place  of  retreat- 
still  busied  himself  with  the  affairs  of 
Europe,  and  sought  in  the  convent  at 
Yuste  to  govern  his  hereditary  domin- 
ions which  he  had  professedly  resigned 
to  his  son,  and  as  far  as  possible  still 
to  control  the  empire  where  he  had  so 
long  reigned.      The  retired  merchant, 
unused   to   reading,  and  imaccustomed 


THKEESCORE    AND    TEN.  49 

to  agriculture  or  the  mechanical  arts, 
having  little  taste,  it  may  be,  for  the 
fine  arts  or  for  social  life,  finds  life  a 
burden,  and  sighs  for  his  old  employ- 
ments and  associations,  for  in  his  antici- 
pation of  this  period  he  never  allowed 
the  idea  to  enter  his  mind  that  he  should 
then  have  really  closed  all  his  plans  of 
life;  that  as  he  had  professedly  done 
■with  the  world,  so  the  world  has  actu- 
ally done  with  him. 

How  great,  therefore,  is  the  difference 
in  the  condition  of  a  man  of  twenty  and 
one  of  seventy  years !  To  those  in  the 
former  condition,  the  words  of  Milton  in 
relation  to  our  first  parents,  when  they 
vf ent  out  ft-om  Eden  into  the  wide  world, 
may  not  improperly  be  applied— 

■  "  The  world  was  all  before  tliem  where  to  choose  ^^ 
Their  place  of  rest,  ana  Provideueo  their  guide  ;" 

those  in  the   other  case  have  nothing 

ThrccKCorfl  anil  Teal  4: 


^^Q  LIFE   AT 

!vhic\i  they  can  choose.  There  is  noth- 
ing before  them  but  the  one  path-that 
^hich  leads  to  the  grave-to  another 
world  To  them  the  path  of  wealth,  of 
fame,  of  learning,  of  ambition,  is  closed 
for  ever.  The  world  has  nothing  more 
for  them ;  they  have  nothing  more  for 

the  world. 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  there  can 
be  nothing  for  an  aged  man  to  do,  or 
that  there  may  not  be,  in  some  cases  a 
field  of  usefulness-pcrhaps  a  new  and  a 
large  one-for  him  to  occupy.     I  mean 
only  that  this  cannot  constitute  a  part  ot 
bis  plan  of  life ;  it  cannot  be  the  result 
of  a  purpose  formed  in  his  earlier  years. 
His  own  plans  and  purposes  of  life  are 
ended,  and  whatever  there  may  be  m 
reserve   for   him,    it  is   usually  a   new 
field-something  which  awaits  him  be- 
yond the  ordinary  course  of  events  ;  and 


THllEESCOKE   AND   TEK.  61 

the  transiiion  from  his  own  finished  plans 
to  this  cannot  but  be  deeply  affecting  to 
his  own  mind.     I  do  not  affirm  that  a 
man  may  not  be  useful  and  happy  as 
lono-  as  God  shall  lengthen  out  his  days 
on  °  he  earth,  and  I  do  not  deny  that 
there  may  be  much  in  the  character  and 
services  of  an  aged  man  that  should  com- 
mand the  respect  and  secure  the  grati- 
tude of  mankind.    The  earlier  character 
and  the  earlier  plans  of  every  man  should 
be  such  that  he  will  be  useful  if  his  days 
extend  beyond  the  ordinary  period  allot- 
ted to  our  earthly  life.     A  calm,  serene, 
cheerful  old  age  is  always  useful.     Con- 
sistent and  mature  piety,  gentleness  of 
spirit,  kindness  and  benevolence  are  al- 
ways useful.      It  is  useful  to  the  advan- 
cing generation,  to  show  that,  even  amid 
the°infirmities  of  age,  there  is  enough  to 
make  a  man  calm,  cheerful,  happy ;  that 


62  ^^^^  ^'^ 

age  is  not  necessarily  morose  or  misan- 
thropic ;  that  though  a  man  has  practi- 
cally done  with  the  more  active  enter- 
prises of  life,  he  does  not  cease  to  feel 
an  interest  in  what  occupies  the  attention 
of  those  who  bear  the  heat  and  the  bur- 
dens of  the  day,  or  even  in  the  innocent 
amusements  and  pastimes  of  childhood 
and  youth.    It  does  good,  moreover,  to 
the  advancing  generation  to  afford  them 
an  opportunity  of  develoi^ng  their  own 
character,   and    manifesting  their   own 
kindness  by  showing  proper  respect  for 
age,  and  by  thus  cheering  those  who  are 
descending  into  the  valley  of  years.    By 
his  mature  counsels  also,  by  his  practi- 
cal wisdom,  by  the  results  of  his  long 
observation  and  experience,  an  aged  man 
may  do  much  to  promote  the  welfare  o. 
the  world  ;  and  it  may  be  a  calamity  thivt 
will  be  deeply  felt  by  survivors,  long 


THREESCORE   AND   TEN.  53 

after  his  own  plans  of  life  shall  have  been 
ended  and  he  is  gathered  to  his  fathers. 
If  he  cannot  now  form  new  plans  to  be 
executed  by  himself,  he  may  infuse  the 
results  of  his  own  long  experience  and 
observation   into  the  plans  formed  by 
those  in  the  vigor  of  life ;  thus  combining 
the  wisdom  of  years  with  the  ardor  of 
youth.     He  may  be  the  patron  of  learn- 
ing, of  science,  of  the  useful  or  the  orna- 
mental arts  ;  he  may  mingle  with  others 
in  the  works  of  Christian  charity ;  he  may 
do  good  by  showing  to  the  coming  gen- 
eration that  there  is,  in  his  apprehen- 
sion, much  that  is  worth  living  for  in  this 
world,  and  much  to  hope  for  in  the  world 
to  come  ;  or  perchance  there  may  he  open 
before  him  in  old  age  some  new  field  of 
usefulness,  unthought  of  in  earlier  life, 
that  never  entered  into  his  own  designs, 
but  which  may,  after  all,  be  that   for 


54  LIFE   AT 

which  he  will  be  gratefully  remembered, 
and  will  perpetuate  his  influence  on  the 
earth  ;  some  field  of  charity  to  cultivate, 
some  work  of  benevolence  to  perform, 
for  which  he  has  been  spared  to  the 
world  beyond  the  ordinary  period  allot- 
ted to  man/^' 

♦  As  an  illustration  of  this  last  remark,  it  cannot 
be  improper  to  refer  to  the  case  of  one,  a  most  ven- 
erable man,  not  long  since  removed  from  the  world, 
John  Adams,  LL.  D.,  for  many  years  the  well-knoAvn 
principal  of  Phillips  Academy,  Andover,  Mass.  His 
name  is  widely  known  and  honored  by  those  who 
enjoyed  the  benefit  of  his  instructions.  By  his  tal- 
ents and  learning  and  fidehty  he  made  that  institn- 
tion  what  it  was,  and  gave  it  the  first  place  among 
the  classical  schools  of  the  land. 

He  accomplished  the  work  which  he  had  contem- 
plated, and  then,  after  many  years'  service,  carried 
out  another  plan  which  he  had  long  cherished,  of 
»*  retiring  "  from  the  post  when  he  should  have  reach- 
ed the  ordinary  term  allotted  to  human  life.  He 
therefore  resigned  his  position,  and  removed  to  what 
what  was  then  the  new  state  of  Illinois.  Finding 
himself  in  robust  health,  unwilliug— perhaps  it  might 
be  said  nnahle— to  spend  his  time  without  some  use- 
Inl  occup.-itioji,  he  eiPi>loYrd  liimself,  at  first  ns  :i  roc- 


THPvEESCORE   AKD    TEN.  55 

If  an  inference  should  be  drawn  from 
the  above  discussion,  it  should  not  be  one 
of  despondency  and  gloom.     There  arc 
clieerful  views  which  an  aged  man  may 
lake  of  life,  perhaps  not  less  cheerful  than 
those  which  are  taken  in  early  years.    If 
early  life  is  full  of  hope,  it  is  also  often 
full  of  anxiety  and   uncertainty ;  if  in 
advanced  life  the  world  has  now  nothing 
to  offer  to  a  man,  it  may  be  that  much  is 
gained  by  being  free  from  the  cares,  the 
burdens,   and   the   anxieties  of  earlier 

reation,  in  the  establishment  of  Sabbath-schools.    In 
th     benevolent  work  he  traversed  the  state,  founded 
large  numbers  of  Sabbath-schools,  put  tl-  system  on 
a  permanent  foundation  during  the  period  of  nearly 
trntTyears,  and  then,  at  the  age  of  ninety-one,  closed 
Lt^KZwork  of  his  life,  venerated  and  hono^d  b^^ 
an     As  the  result  of  these  mature  labors,  it  is  sup 
posed  that  there  are  not  less  than  fifty  t— ^^^^^^^ 
dron  re^ilarly  in  the  Sabbath-schools  m  the  state  o 
U    o    rwho  would  not  have  been  there  if  it  had  no 
been  for  services  he  rendered  to  the  church  and  the 
,vnria/.^yo».Ztbc,-ri.>.lof"thvoos.oronndten.    • 


ja 


LIFE   AT 


years ;  if  to  such  a  one  this  world  has 
nothing  now  to  give,  there  may  be  much 
more  than  it  ever  gave  even  in  antici-* 
pation,  and  infinitely  more  than  it  has 
given  in  reality,  in  the  hope  of  the  life  to 
come— in  the  prospective  happiness  of 
heaven  now  so  near. 

But  lessons  of  another  kind  may  be 
drawn  from  this  view,  that  may  be  valu- 
able to  those  who  are  entering  on  life. 
They  are  such  as  the  following : 

They  who  are  in  early  or  in  middle 
life  should  not  look  for  happiness  in  that 
future  period  when  they  shall  be  laid 
aside  by  age,  and  prevented  from  en- 
gaging in  the  active  duties  and  responsi- 
bilities of  life.  True  happiness  is  found 
in  useful  employment ;  in  doing  our  duty ; 
in  improving  the  present — not  in  dreams 
and  visions  of  the  future.  They  who  are 
anticipating  happiness  in  the  distant  fu- 


TIiriEESCORE   AND   TEN.  57 

ture  on  earth— when  they  shall  reach  old 
r^ge — xnay  not,  probably  will  not,  reach 
that  period ;  and  they  may  be  much  dis- 
appointed in  their  anticipations  if  they 

do. 

The  plans  of  this  life  should  extend  as 
far  into  the  future  as  possible ;  so  far, 
that  if  it  can  be  done,  they  should  em- 
brace the  whole  of  life :  in  other  words, 
so  that  the  time  will  never  come  when 
they  shall  feel  that  they  have  nothing 

to  do. 

The  young  and  the  vigorous  should 
make  the  most  of  the  present.  The  pres- 
ent is  all  that  they  can  calculate  on  with 
any  certainty,  or  with  any  such  proba- 
bility as  to  be  the  foundation  of  a  plan 
of  living. 

All  classes  of  men  should  so  live  that 
when  the  period  of  old  age  shall  arrive, 
if  they  reach  that  period,  they  may  be 


58  LIFE  AT 

able  to  look  back  on  a  life  well  spent— 
not  with  the  embittered  feelings  that 
their  lives  have  been  wasted ;  not  with 
the  painful  reflection,  when  they  can  form 
no  plan  of  life,  that  the  time  when  they 
couU  have  formed  a  purpose  that  might 
have  extended  far  into  the  future,  and 
that  might  have  benefited  the  world,  was 
squandered  and  lost. 

I  may  add  also,  that  that  man  is  in- 
deed desolate  who  has  reached  the  peri- 
od of  "  threescore  and  ten"  with  no  hope 
of  a  future  life ;  with  no  evidence  that 
he  is  prepared  for  heaven  ;  with  nothing 
to  anticipate  in  a  coming  world.    I  shall 
'not  be  understood  as  intimating  that  I 
regard  religion  as  not  valuable  or  neces- 
sary at  any  period  of  life :  but  in  its  ear- 
lier periods  there  are  other  things  which 
may   engage   the   attention;  there   are 
other  hopes  whi<'h   may  be  before  Uu- 


I 


THREESCORE   AND   TEN.  59 

mind  ;   the    world,   then,   has   much   to 
promise,  if  not  much  to  give ;  there  are 
pUins  that  may  be  formed  that  will  en- 
gross the  attention,  hopes  that  may  fill 
the  mind  with  ardor,  prizes  to  be  won 
which  seem  to  be  worth  all  the  effort 
which  they  will  cost ;  but  what  is  there 
of  this  nature  for  the  aged  man  at  the 
close  of  life?     What  plan,  what  hope 
can  he  now  have  if  it  is  not  derived  from 
religion  ?     What  is  there  for  him  to  live 
for  if  it  is  not  the  life  to  come  ?    What 
a  blank  must  existence  now  be  to  him  if 
he  has  no  prospect  of  life  and  joy  beyond 
the  grave ! 


60 


LIFE   AT 


11. 


Standing  at  this  point  of  life,  all  men 
could   see,  if  they  would  reflect,    that 
there  has  been  a  higher  plan  or  purpose, 
even  in  their  own  affairs,  than  their  own  ; 
and  that  there  has  been  an  influence  con- 
tinually bearing  on  themselves  to  carry 
out  that  higher  plan.     In  other  words,  a 
man  will  often  sec  that  he  has  not  accom- 
plished what  he  designed  to  do,  but  per- 
haps the  very  reverse,  in  the  execution 
of  some  higher  purpose  than  his  own. 

If  such  reflections  should  lead  one  to 
recognize  an  overruling  hand  in  his  own 
life,  and  if  it  should  lead  to  the  convic- 
tion that  there  is  a  great  comprehensive 
plan  that  embraces  all  human  aff'airs,  and 


TIIUEESCOIIK   AND   TEN.  61 

that  makes  all  the  individual  purposes 
of  men  subordinate  to  that,  it  would  be 
a  result  that  might  do  much  to  enable 
him  to  form  a  just  estimate  of  the  real 
course  of  things.     That  there  is  a  vast 
and  comprehensive  purpose,  so  to  speak, 
above  us— a  purpose  that  embraces  all 
our  individual  actions,  and  all  the  affairs 
of  nations,  making  all  tributary  to  the 
accomplishment  of  a  high  and  eternal 
plan— as  each  fountain  of  water  flowing 
noiselessly  from  the  hillside,  and  each 
o-entle  rivulet,  contributes  to  the  forma- 
tion  of  the  great  river  that  rolls  into  the 
ocean— is  the  clear  teaching  of  the  Bible, 
and  may  yet  be  recognized  as  the  equally 
clear  teaching  of  philosophy.    The  glory 
of  that  rivulet  is  not  that  it  falls  gently 
down  the  mountain  side,  or  flows  sweet- 
ly through   the  vale,   beautiful  as  that 
may  be,  but  that  it  does  contribute  to 


62 


*    LIFE   AT 


swell  the  great  river  that  thus  rolls  into 
the  ocean.  So  the  glory  of  a  plan  or 
act  of  mau  maybe,  that,  though  in  itself 
too  insignificant  to  be  remembered,  it 
does  contribute  to  carry  out  the  great 
plans  of  God — the  plans  that  embrace 
eternity  and  infinity. 

The  point  to  which  I  am  here  advert- 
ing, that  all  human  plans  are  made  sub- 
servient to  the  accomplishment  of  a 
higher  divine  purpose,  is  clearly  stated 
in  the  Bible.  "A  man's  heart  deviseth 
his  way,  but  the  Lord  directeth  his 
steps."  Prov.  16:9.  "  There  are  many 
devices  in  a  man's  heart,  nevertheless 
the  counsel  of  the  Lord,  that  shall  stand." 
Prov.  19 :  21.  "The  way  of  man  is  not  in 
himself:  it  is  not  in  man  that  walketh  to 
direct  his  steps."  Jer.  10 :  23.  "  Surely 
the  wrath  of  man  shall  praise  thee :  the 
remainder  of  wrath  shalt  thou  restrain." 


THliEESCOllE   AND   TEN. 


63 


Psa.  76  :  10.  "I  am  God,  and  there  is 
none  else  :  I  am  God,  and  there  is  none 
like  me,  declaring  the  end  from  the  be- 
ginning, and  from  ancient  times  the  things 
that  are  not  yet  done,  saying,  My  coun- 
sel shall  stand,  and  I  will  do  all  my 
pleasure."  Isa.  46  :  9,  10.  This  senti- 
ment has  been  beautifully  expressed  also 
by  the  great  poet : 

"  Our  indiscretion  sometimes  serves  us  well, 
Wlieu  our  deep  plots  do  pall ;  and  that  should 

teach  us, 
There 's  a  divinity  that  shapes  our  ends, 
Rough-hew  them  how  we  will."* 

Philosophy  has  not  been  willing  to 
avow  this  as  an  admitted  truth,  but  his- 
tory is  fast  tending  to  it,  and  the  time  is 
not  distant  when  no  philosophy  will  be 
regarded  as  complete,  as  no  history  is, 
which  does  not  recognize  the  idea.  No 
man  can  furnish  a  correct  explanation  of 

*  Hamlet,  Act  5,  Scene  2. 


I 


54  LIFE  AT 

the  facts  of  history,  isolated  as  they  seem 
to  be,  who  does  not  regard  them  as  part 
of  a  vast  system,  under  the  superintend- 
ence of  one  Presiding  Mind,  with  one 
great  plan  extending  over  the  entire 
race  of  man,  and  embracing  all  kingdoms, 
empires,  and  lands.     Each  one  of  the 
events  of  the  world,  isolated  as  it  may 
appear,  becomes  thus  a  part  of  a  com- 
prehensive   scheme— entering  into    the 
development  of  the  Divine  purposes  as 
really  as  the  arrangement  of  the  various 
separate  particles  in  a  tree  or  in  the 
human  frame  is  connected  with  its  de- 
velopment in  its  perfect  form ;  or  as  the 
little  labors  of  the  animalculaj  become 
connected  with  the  beautiful  formations 
that  rise  above  the  sea  in  reefs  or  islands. 
The  individual  insect  dies  and  is  forgot- 
ten ;  the  plan  goes  steadily  forward. 
It  gives  a  new  view  of  life  in  regard  to 


tl 


TIlllEESCORE   AND   TEN.  65 

its  value,  when  a  man,  however  humble 
and  obscure  he  may  be,  can  recognize  the 
Divine  hand  in  his  own  course  through 
the  world,  and  can  see  that  God  has 
been  accomplishing  what  he  himself  never 
contemplated  or  intended,  and  what  he 
may  himself  not  even  now  understand. 
He  himself,  like  the  insect  in  the  forma- 
tion of  the  coral  reef,  may  pass  away 
and  be  forgotten.  There  may  have  been 
nothing  in  his  own  work  to  perpetuate 
the  memory  of  his  individuality;  the 
stone  which  friendship  may  erect  over 
his  grave -may  fall  down,  and  the  place 
where  he  sleeps  in  death  may  be  un- 
marked and  unknown  ;  but  he  has  be- 
come absorbed  in  a  greater  movement 
than  his  own  individual  plans,  and  a 
purpose  higher  than  he  has  ever  de- 
signed has  been  accomplished  by  his  liv- 
ing on  the  earth. 


iiil 


Tbreescoiti  and  Ten. 


G6 


LIFE   AT 


It  may  seem  to  be  mere  vanity  now  to 
apply  these  remarks  in  any  way  to  ray- 
self,  but  they  are  as  applicable  to  one 
mail  as  another,  and  they  are  now  so 
applied  only  to  illustrate  this  one  gen- 
eral point,  showing  how  life  seems  to  a 
man  when  he  approaches  its  close.  The 
idea  is,  that  at  such  a  time  a  man  will 
feel  that  his  life  has  been  shaped  other- 
wise than  he  anticipated;  that  he  has 
rarely  carried  out  his  own  plans ;  that 
he  has,  in  fact,  pursued  a  different  course 
from  that  which  he  or  his  parents  de- 
signed ;  that  he  has  foiled  much  in  what 
he  intended,  and  that  if  he  has  accom- 
plished anything,  it  has  been  in  a  great 
measure  what  he  neither  contemplated 
nor  designed. 

I  had,  when  a  boy,  a  young  friend— a 
playmate,  a  schoolmate ;  he,  like  myself, 
being  the  son  of  a  mechanic,  and  neither 


THllEESCORE   AND   TEN. 


67 


of  US  with  any  other  advantage  than  our 
other  playmates  and  schoolmates  had. 
From  our  early  prospects  and  occupa- 
tions we  were  both  turned  aside  by  the 
suggestions  of  a  country  schoolmaster, 
who  persuaded  us,  with  the  somewhat 
reluctant  assent  of  our  parents,  to  leave 
our  homes  with  a  view  to  a  course  of 
studies  preparatory  to  the  profession  of 
the  law.  My  youthful  friend,  by  talent 
and  industry  in  the  line  thus  contempla- 
ted, placed  himself  at  the  head  of  the 
legal  profession  in  our  native  state,  and 
ultimately  occupied  the  highest  judicial 
position  in  the  state,  accomplishing  a 
purpose  of  which  he  never  dreamed  in 
early  life,  and  illustrating  the  thought 
which  I  am  endeavoring  to  S€t  before 
you,  that  "  there's  a  divinity  that  shapes 
our  ends  f  that  ''  a  man's  heart  deviseth 
his  way,  but  the  Lord  directeth  his  steps." 


68  LIFE  AT 

If  it  should  be  said  that  the  case  re- 
ferred to  is  by  no  means  an  unusual  thing ; 
that  it  is,  in  fact,  a  matter  of  common 
occurrence,  I  admit  that  this  is  so,  and 
it  is  for  this  very  reason  that  I  have  ad- 
verted to  it.  It  is  to  show  that  it  is  so 
common,  I  may  say  so  universal,  as  to 
prove  that  there  is  over  all  things,  and 
embracing  all  things,  a  great  plan ;  that 
there  is  one  presiding  Intellect  over  all ; 
that  there  is  a  God  who  has  his  own 
purposes,  and  who  makes  those  of  his 
creatures  subordinate  to  his  own  ;  that, 
in  fact,  while  they  are  free,  he  has  the 
power  to  control  them  so  as  to  carry  out 
his  own  designs. 

But  what  I  wished  particularly  to  ad- 
vert to  as  pertaining  to  the  matter  before 
us,  was,  to  show  how  this  appears  to  a 
man  who  has  reached  the  outer  limit  of 
human  life,  and  who  from  that  point  looks 


THREESCORE   AND   TEN.  C9 

back  over  his  own  course.  Few,  if  any, 
at  that  period,  can  look  over  life  with- 
out recalling  the  fact  that  they  have  often 
been  enbarrassed  in  their  way ;  that  they 
have  met  with  many  disappointments  in 
their  cherished  plans  ;  that  obstacles  from 
unforeseen  quarters  have  been  thrown  in 
their  path ;  nay,  that  they  may  have  been 
compelled  more  than  once  to  change  their 
plans  of  life.  At  the  time  when  these 
things  occurred  they  felt  them  keenly. 
They  were  saddened  by  disappointment, 
and  wept  at  their  want  of  success ;  they 
felt  that  even  ''the  stars  in  their  courses 
fought  against  them  f  they  were  envious 
at  the  success  of  others  in  whose  path  no 
obstacles  seemed  to  be  interposed ;  and 
possibly  they  may  have  been  tempted  to 
murmur  at  what  seemed  to  them  an  un- 
just and  a  partial  government  of  the 
world— against  that  superior  Power  that 


70  lill'E  AT 

gave  success  to  others,  and  frowned  on 
their  path.     Now,  in  the  review,  how- 
ever, all  this  seems  to  be  changed.    Those 
reverses  are  seen  to  have  been  under  a 
wise  direction,  in  order  that  they  who 
were  thus  disappointed  might  accomplish 
what  they  had  not  designed  to  accom- 
plish, as  well  as  that  their  own  spiritual 
and  eternal  good  might  be  secured.     So 
we  now  look  over  tlie  history  of  the  world, 
and  see  that  the  great  changes  which 
have  (ftcurred  among  the  nations— the 
revolutions  of  states  and  empires,  the 
reverses,  the  judgments,  and  the  calami- 
ties which  have  come  upon  nations  have 
all  been  necessary  in  the  great  move- 
ments  of  human  affairs,   and  have  all 
tended  in  some  way  to  promote  the  ulti- 
mate welfare  of  man,  and  to  contribute 
to  the  progress  of  the  race. 

For  myself,  if  it  will  not  be  regarded 


I 


THIIEESCORE    AND   TEN.  71 

as  mere  vanity  to  refer  to  this,  I  may 
say  that  all  this  has  been  illustrated  in 
my  own  life  as  it  now  seems  to  me  in  the 
review  of  the  past.  I  have  carried  out 
none  of  the  purposes  of  my  early  years. 
I  have  failed  in  those  things  which  I  had 
designed  and  which  I  hoped  to  accom- 
plish. I  have  done  what  I  had  never 
purposed  or  expected  to  do.  I  have 
known  what  it  was  to  weep  at  discour- 
agements. I  have  been  led  along  con- 
trary to  my  early  anticipations.  I  can 
now  see,  I  think,  that  while  I  have  been 
conscious  of  entire  freedom  in  all  that  I 
have  done,  yet  that  my  whole  life  has 
been  under  the  absolute  control  of  a 
Higher  Power,  and  that  there  has  been 
a  will  and  a  plan  in  regard  to  my  life 
which  was  not  my  own.  Even  my  most 
voluntary  acts,  I  can  see,  have  been  sub- 
servient to  that  higher  plan,  and  what  T 


72  LIFE    AT 

have  done  lias  been  done  as  if  I  had  no 
agency  in  the  matter. 

It  would  not  be  proper  to  go  into  de-' 
tails  here,  and  if  I  did,  they  would  be 
8uch  only  as  occur  substantially  in  the 
life  of  every  man,  and  which  any  one 
could  recount  at  the  age  of  seventy.  It 
is  not  because  there  has  been  anything 
peculiar  in  my  case  that  I  advert  to  this, 
but  merely  to  illustrate  a  general  truth — 
to  show  you  how  life  will  seem  to  you 
Avhen  you  review  it  at  its  close.  If  I 
k^ve  done  anything  in  the  world,  what  I 
have  done  has  been  from  no  original  pur- 
pose or  plan  of  my  own  ;  if  praise  is  due 
anywhere,  it  is  not  to  me,  but  to  Him 
who  has  directed  my  steps;  if  I  have 
been  useful  in  any  respect,  it  is  because 
there  was  a  controlling  Providence  that 
directed  my  path. 

But  if  the  personal  roferonce  may  bo 


THREESCORE    AND   TEN.  73 

allowed,  I  may  allude  to  what  in  fact 
has  proved  to  be  the  principal  work  of 
my  life,  and  that  in  which  I  have  been 
more  successful   than   in  any  other;  I 
mean  the  preparation  of  notes  or  com- 
mentaries on  the  Sacred  Scriptures.   For 
this  work  I  had  made  no  special  prepa- 
ration,  and   it  never  entered   into  my 
early  plans  or  expectations.     I  was  led 
to  it  as  a  side-work  altogether,  and  pur- 
sued it  as  a  pleasurable  occupation  from 
day  to  day.     I  began  merely  with  the 
design  of  preparing  a   few   plain    and 
simple  notes  on  the  gospels  for  the  ben- 
efit of  Sunday-school  teachers.     There 
was  a  demand  for  some  brief  explana- 
tion of  the  gospels  for  Sunday-schools, 
and   it  was  certain  that   such  a  work 
would  be  furnished  by  some  one.    Three 
other  gentlemen,  each  of  them  peculiarly 
'jualified  for  the  task,  commenced  the 


74  LIFE   AT 

preparation  of  such  notes  at  abont  tlie 
same  time,  but  each  of  them  abandoned 
the  design.  With  me  the  preparation 
of  those  notes  on  the  gospels  led  to  the 
hahit  of  spending  a  small  portion  of  each 
day  in  writing  on  some  part  of  .the 
Bible,  at  such  a  time  as  would  not 
interfere  with  my  regular  duties  as  a 
pastor,  until,  to  my  own  surprise,  I 
found  myself  at  the  end  of  the  New 
Testament,  and  until,  to  my  greater 
surprise,  as  the  result  has  shown,  more 
than  a  million  of  volumes  have  been 
sold  in  this  country  and  abroad,  in  my 
native  tongue,  and  in  languages  which  I 
cannot  read  or  understand.  If  there 
may  seem  to  have  been  some  self-denial 
required  in  pursuing  such  a  work  for 
more  than  thirty  years ;  in  doing  it  in 
the  early  morning  hours  when  the  inhab- 
itants of  this  great  city  were  slumber- 


1 

i 

1 


I 


THUEESCORE   AND   TEN.  75 

ing  round  about  me  ;  in  pursuing  it  when 
burdened  with  the  duties  of  a  most  re- 
sponsible charge ;  in  going  to  my  study 
in   the  early  morning   in  all  kinds  of 
weather,  cold,  heat,  storm,  rain,  snow; 
if  there  geems  to  have  been  something 
like   dogged    perseverance    in    this  —  I 
would  say  that  this  does  not  appear  to 
me  now  to  be  so.     Nothing  is  plainer 
to  my  own  apprehension,  nothing  more 
indelibly  impressed  on  my  mind  in  the 
review  of  the  past,  than  that  there  was 
an  unseen  hand  that  guided  me  in  this 
work  from  day  to  day,  and  an  influence 
from   above   that   prompted   me   to   it; 
that  there  was  a  demand  in  the  state 
of  the  church  that  it  should  be  done  by 
gome  one ;  that  an  emergency  had  arisen 
in  the  establishment  of  a  new  institu- 
tion, the  Sunday-school,  for  such  a  work ; 
that  God  gave  me  health,  and  strength, 


76 


LIFE   AT 


and  a  love  for  the  work  witli  reference 
to  its  accomplishraent;   that  he  awoke 
me  morning  by  morning  for  the  pleasant 
task ;  that  his  hand  guided  my  own  in 
writing,  and  that,  although  conscious  of 
being  entirely  Yoluntary,  there  was  an 
overruling    Providence,    an    overruling 
Poiver,  that  prompted  to  the  conception 
of  the  task,  and  that  led  to  its  comple- 
tion.    I  am  constrained  now  to  ask  you 
to  forgive   this  personal   allusion— this 
reference  in  this  public  manner  to  my 
own  labors.     As  I  know  my  own  heart, 
it  is  not  in  any  spirit  of  boasting;  it  is 
only  that  I  may  now,  at  the  end  of  my 
labors  on  earth,  render  the  praise  where 
the  praise  is  due,  and  that  I  may  illus- 
trate a  great  truth  of  value  to  all,  that 
"a  man's  heart  deviseth  his  way,  but 
that  the  counsel  of  the  Lord  that  shall 
stand ;"  that  there  is  a  supreme  provi- 


I 

f 


THREESCORE   AND   TEN.  77 

dence ;  that  tbere  is  a  God  that  rules 
over  human  affairs ;  that  there  is  a  great 
comprehensive   plan  to   which  all  our 
plans  are  subordinate.    I  have  no  claim 
to  merit,  to  praise,  or  to  honor  on  ac- 
count of  what  I  have  been  enabled  to 
do.     I   refer  to  it  now  with  no  such 
view.     I  am  trying  to  show  to  those 
in  earlier  life  how  a  man  feels  when 
he  has  reached  the  outer  limits  of  his 
course ;  and  what  I  wish  to  say  is,  that 
it  then  seems  to  him  that  there  has  been 
a  divine  hand  in  his  course,  and  that 
his   own   plans,    often   frustrated,    and 
whether  successful  or  not,  have  all  been 
subordinate  to  a  much  higher  plan,  in 
which  all  his  purposes  are  absorbed  and 
lost,  and  in  which  all  that  he  does  may 
be,  in  view  of  that  vast  plan,  wholly 
insignificant— though  like  the  little  labor 
of  the  animalculJE  in  the  coral  reefs,  his 


78 


LIFE   AT 


toil  may  enter  into  the  completion  of 
a  much  liigber  design. 

It  is  a  great  truth,  confirmed  more 
and  more  in  the  history  of  the  world, 
that  God  will  make  the  individual  plans 
of  men,  and  the  purposes  of  nations, 
subservient  to  his  own.  Whether  they 
design  it  or  not,  He  will  make  all  their 
schemes  subordinate  to  that  higher  and 
vaster  movement  which  is  going  for- 
ward in  the  history  of  the  earth,  as, 
also.  He  will  make  all  the  movements 
of  the  earth  itself  subordinate  to  the 
development  of  that  vaster  plan  which 
embraces  all  worlds,  making  the  uni- 
verse one. 

Life  becomes  great  only  when  it  is 
contemplated  in  connection  with  the 
purposes  of  an  overruling  Providence— 
with  that  scheme  which  comprehends 
all  things.     Men  are  great  only,  when, 


THKEESCOllE   AND   TEN.  79 

in  their  rise  and  fall,  they  are  regarded 
as  connected  with  such  a  vast  and  com- 
prehensive plan.  Individuals  and  na- 
tions have  their  own  purposes  and  plans. 
They  are  alike  voluntary.  They  may  be, 
or  may  not  be,  successful  in  their  schemes. 
They  alike  pass  away ;  they  alike  may 
be  forgotten ;  but  the  great  plan  moves 
on.  That,  amidst  the  failures  or  the 
successes  of  other  plans,  is  certain  to 
be  accomplished.  "My  covenaut  shall 
stand,  and  I  will  do  all  my  pleasure," 
is  the  language  of  God,  alike  in  his 
word  and  in  the  course  of  events. 

The  individual  workers  pass  away. 
The  countless  millions  of  the  toilers  on 
the  earth  disappear.  The  actors  of  other 
times,  the  builders  of  the  pyramids,  the 
hosts  that  composed  the  armies  of  Xer- 
xes, Cyrus,  Alexander,  Caesar,  have  all 
vanished.     The  builders  of  Thebes,  of 


80  LIFE   AT 

Nineveh,   of  Babylon,  of  Rome,   have 
all  gone.    The  great  orators,  lawgivers, 
poets,   conquerers,  sages,  philosophers, 
are  withdrawn.    The  grave  has  closed 
over  them,  but  the  results  of  their  con- 
flicts, their  toils,  their  genius,  have  gone 
into  the  history  of  the  world,  with  God's 
greater  plan  that  embraces  and  com- 
prehends  all.      So   the  nations  them- 
selves pass  away.    Egypt,  Assyria,  the 
Grecian  states,  the  Roman  empire,  the 
kingdoms  that  Alexander  founded,  the 
kingdoms  of  the  Huns,  the  Goths,  the 
Vandals— of  Attila  and  Tamerlane— 
have  passed  away ;  but  they  were  great 
in  their  history,  because  their  rise  and 
fall   were   parts  of  one   comprehensive 
plan  which  embraces  all  people  and  all 
times,  and  which,  when  those  parts  are 
combined,  will  make  the  history  of  this 
world  truly  great. 


THKEESCOKE   AND   TEN. 


81 


III. 


I  SHALL  now  advert  to  a  point  which 
seems  not  improper  to  be  dwelt  upon 
by  one  who  has  reached  the  period  of 
threescore  and  ten.  It  is,  that  it  is 
a  much  greater  thing  to  have  lived 
through  these  seventy  years  just  past 
than  it  was  to  have  lived  through  any 
previous  seventy  years  in  the  world's 
history.  A  similar  remark,  P  have  no 
doubt,  will  be  made,  and  with  much 
more  force  and  propriety,  by  one  who 
shall  live  through  the  next  seventy 
years,  and  with  still  greater  force  and 
propriety  in  advancing  periods  of  the 
world ;  but  the  remark  has  now  a  force 
which  it  could  never  have  had  before 


our  time. 


TbiMftcoie  and  len. 


G 


^2  Lli^E   AT 

I  mean  by  the  remark  that  it  has  been 
a  greater  privilege  to  live  during  these 
seventy  years  than  it  would  have  been 
to  live  any  seventy  years  previous  to 
this  period;  that  life  has  been  worth 
more ;  that  there  have  been  more  ad- 
vantages for  securing  the  great  ends  of 
living;  that  there  has  been  more  that 
a  man  could  do ;  that  life  has  been  prac- 
tically much  longer,  and  that  the  respon- 
sibilities of  living  have  been  proportion- 
ally greater. 

1.  Thefc  have  been  times  and  coun- 
tries, and  there  are  still,  where  seventy 
years  of  human  existence  are  of  very 
little  value.  In  such  times  and  coun- 
tries the  world  makes  no  progress.  It 
is  substantially  the  same  at  the  begin- 
ning and  the  close  of  the  period.  There 
is  no  accumulation  of  wealth,  of  influ- 
ence, of  learning.     In  savage  life  the 


THEEESCORE   AND   TEN.  83 

same  style  of  living  prevails ;  the  tents, 
huts,  or  houses  are  built  in  the  same 
manner;   the   same   modes   of  hunting, 
of  fishing,  or  of  cultivating  the  ground 
exist;  the  same  manner  of  dress;  the 
same  modes  of  travel ;  the  same  kinds  of 
amusement  or  pastime;  the  same  rules 
of  administering  to  the  maladies  of  the 
sick ;  the  same  methods  of  war,  and  the 
same  ideas  in  regard  to  the  objects  of 
living.     Seventy  years  of  savage  life— 
what  is  it  worth?    The  savage  makes 
no  progress,  for  his  life  at  the  beginning 
of  such  a  period  and  at  its  close  is  the 
same.      The  same  remark  is  also  true 
in  regard  to  nations  which  have  emerged 
in  some  degree  from  savage  life,   and 
which  have  attained  to  a  considerable 
degree  of  civilization.      Seventy  years 
of   life   in   Egypt  when    the   pyramids 
were   built  — what   were    they   worth? 


84 


LIFE  AT 


IK 


Sevcuty  years   in   the  middle  ages  in 
Europe— what  were  they  worth?  When, 
under  the  best  circumstances,  and  with 
the  highest  aims,  whole  years  of  patient 
toil  were  to  be  spent  in  transcribing  a 
volume  of  Tlato  or  Aristotle  ;  in  copy- 
ing the  Sacred  Scriptures  ;  or  in  substi- 
tuting the  legend  of  a  saint  for  one  of 
the  obliterated  books  of  Livy  ;  how  much 
could  be  made  of  such  a  life?    Seventy 
years  in  China  now— seventy  years  at 
any  period  within  three  thousand  years 
in   China— what  are   they,    what  have 
they  been  w^orth  ?     China,  thousands  of 
years  ago,  reached  the  highest  point  of 
civilization  possible  under  the  existing 
form  of  its  institutions  and  its  religion, 
and  progress  there  is  impossible  until 
there  shall  be  some  great  revolution, 
and  life  there  three  thousand  years  ago, 
for  all  the'  purposes  pertaining  to  this 


THREESCOllE   AND   TEX.  85 

world  or  the  world  to  come,  was  as 
valuable  as  it  is  now.  A  citizen  of  that 
nation  can  make  no  more  of  it  now  than 
ho  could  have  made  then,  and  whether 
he  lived  at  the  one  period  or  the  other 
might  have  been  a  matter  of  perfect 
indiflference,  for  it  was  in  all  respects, 
for  learning,  for  travel,  for  science,  for 
the  arts,  for  domestic  comfort,  for  social 
enjoyment,  just  as  long  at  one  time  as 
at  another ;  the  world  was  just  as  large 
at  one  period  as  at  another ;  the  bound- 
aries between  known  and  unknown  re- 
gions were  the  same. 

2.  But  seventy  years  of  life  may  be 
much  more  important,  and  may  for  all 
the  purposes  of  living,  be  much  longer 
at  one  period  of  the  world  than  another. 
It  is  much  more  so  now  than  it  ever  was 
or  could  be  among  savage  tribes ;  than  it 
was  in  Ancient  Egypt  or  Assyria ;  than 


86  LIFE  AT 

it  was  or  is  in  India  or  in  China  ;  tlian  it 
was  in  Scotland,  in  England,  in  France, 
or  in  Germany  previous  to  tlie  Eefor- 
mation ;  nay,  than  it  was  in  our  own 
country  during  the  last  century— it  will 
be  vastly  more  momentous  and  valua- 
ble—immensely longer  in  respect  to  all 
that  can  be  made  of  life — in  the  next 
seventy  years  than  it  is  now. 

In  most  important  respects  the  dis- 
coveries which  have  been  made  in  our 
own  times — the  inventions  and  improve- 
ments in  the  arts  of  living — have  been 
equivalent  to  making  life  twice,  or  thrice 
or  four  times  as  long  as  it  once  was, 
or  of  adding  twice,  op  thrice,  or  four 
times  to  the  duration  of  human  exist- 
ence on  earth.  A  man  whose  business 
is  to  travel,  who  can  pass  over  as  much 
in  his  journey  now  in  one  hour  as  would 
on  a  camel,  or  on  a  horse,  or  on  foot, 


THllEESCORE   AND   TEN. 


87 


r 


have  occupied  twelve  hours,  has  in  this 
respect  added  eleven  hours  in  such  a 
journey  to   his  life.      In   former  times 
it  required  the  slow  labor  of  a  monk 
two  or   three   years   to   transcribe  the 
]3ibie_a  work  which  can  now  be  per- 
formed by  the  art  of  printing  in  a  few 
hours,  including  on  an  average,  all  the 
labor  of  type-setting,  and  stereotyping, 
of  folding  and  of  binding,  and  thus  just 
so  much  has  been  added  to  the  life  of 
man.     In  the  best  days  of  Greece  or  of 
Rome,  or  in  Arabia  under  the  caliphs, 
or  in  the  dark  ages,  an  author  might 
acquire  celebrity  who  could   send   out 
a  thousand  copies  of  a  work  of  his  own, 
or  secure  their  circulation ;  in  this  age 
a  man  may  send  out  in  different  lan- 
guages a  million  of  volumes  of  his  own 
to  influence  for  good  or   for  evil,   the 
people  of  his  own  or  foreign  lands.     So 


88 


LIFE   AT 


4 


lllllllllllll 


much  mmj  life  be  worth  now  as  com- 
pared with  former  times  *  The  same  is 
true  with  regard  to  the  uuichines  for 
mowing,  and  reaping,  and  thrashing — for 
carding,  and  spinning,  and  weaving — 
fur  the  communication  of  intelligence  by 
letters,  by  the  telegraph,  and  by  news- 
papers— for  the  purposes  of  travel  and 
and  navigation — for  the  transfer  of  the 
products  of  the  earth  to  market  —  for 
the  manufacture  of  raw  materials  into 

♦  Besides  all  that  lias  been  done  in  the  circula- 
tion of  the  same  works  through  other  sources,  the 
American  Tract  Society  has  published  : 

Of  Baxter's  Saints'  Best,  nearly 300,000  copies. 

Of  Baxter's  Call 400,000 

Of  Alleine's  Alarm 250,000 

Of  Doddridge's Bise  and  Progress,--  200,000 

Of  James'  Anxious  Inquirer 150,000 

Of  their  Tracts : 

No.    50 1,227,000 

No.  109 612,000 

No.  357 1,045,500 

No.  368 989,000 

And  of  many  others  more  than  half  a  niiUior.  oi 
copies  each. 


I, 


THREESCORE   AND   TEN.  89 

the  forms  that  they  are  designed  to 
assume  in  clothing,  in  coin,  in  structures 
of  utility  or  ornament — in  everything 
that  ministers  to  domestic  comfort  or 
to  public  welfare.  Any  one  may  see 
the  force  of  this  remark  if  he  will  esti- 
mate the  influence  of  the  sewing-ma- 
chine—an invention  of  our  own  age, 
and  if  he  will  calculate  how  much  has 
been  added  to  female  life  by  this  most 
ingenious  invention  —  abridging  more 
than  one-half  this  portion  of  the  labors 

of  a  family. 

All  this  is  equivalent  to  making  life 
as  many  times  longer,  for  all  the  pur- 
poses of  wealth,  of  happiness  and  of 
knowledge,  as  has  been  saved  by  ma- 
chinery and  inventions.  The  uncon- 
scious powers  of  nature  now  accomplish 
a  large  part  of  what  was  done  by  human 
muscles,  and  do  it  better  than  it  could 


I 

I 

I 


90  LIFE   AT 

have  been  done  by  the  unaided  hand  of 
man.     The  mere  lengthening  of  life  to 
the  period  of  Methuselah  would  not  in 
itself  be  equivalent  to  what  has  been 
gained  in  this  manner ;  and  for  all  the 
purposes  of  living,  human  life  is  now 
incomparably  longer  than  it  was  in  the 
time  of  the  antediluvian  patriarchs.  The 
aggregate,  so  to  speak,  of  human  exist- 
ence,  is   thus  vast— more  vast  by  far 
than  it  would  have  been  to  have  added 
these  years  now  saved  to  life  in  ruder 
periods  of  the  world— for  a  man  can 
accomplish  incomparably  more  now  than 
he  could  have  done  in  other  ages  by 
any  mere   addition   of  days  or   years, 
f The  addition  of  a  hundred  years  to  the 
life  of  a  monk  would  only  have  enabled 
him  to  transcribe  a  few  more  copies  of 
the  Bible— which  can  now  be  done  in 
a  few  moments;  the   addition  of  any 


THREESCOUE   A^il>    TEN.  91 

number  of  years  to  the  builders  of  the 
pyramids  would  have  only  enabled  them 
to  pile  a  few  more  stones  on  the  vast 
mass  ;   the  addition  of  any  number  of 
years  to  the  life  of  a  savage  would  have 
left  him  a  savage  still,  and  with  nothing 
accomplished— with  no  advance  towards 
civilization— with  no    accumulation   of 
property  or  knowledge ;  the  addition  of 
any  number  of  years  to  an  inhabitant  of 
China  would  contribute  little  or  nothing 
to  the  real  duration  of  his  life. 

3.  This  is  a  different  world  from  what 
it  was  seventy  years  ago.  The  uni- 
verse, if  I  may  so  express  it,  is  larger 
than 'it  was  then;  the  earth  is  more 
ancient  and  more  grand.  It  is  true, 
indeed,  that  to  the  eye  of  an  Omnis- 
cient Being  the  universe  is  the  same; 
but  it  is  more  vast  as  it  appears  to  man. 
Every  seventy  years  of  the  earth's  his- 


( 


92  LIFE   AT 

tory,  except  i)erliaps  the  period  of  the 
dark  ages,  has  made  the  world  different ; 
but  no  period  of  seventy  years  has  made 
so  great  a  change  as  that  to  which  I 
now  refer.  There  is  not  a  science  whose 
boundaries  have  not  been  greatly  en- 
larged. Many  of  the  most  important 
discoveries  in  science,  and  inventions 
in  the  arts,  which  are  to  be  developed 
in  their  influence  on  following  ages,  have 
started  into  being  in  groups  and  clus- 
ters. Worlds  and  systems  have  been 
brought  into  view  unknown  to  man  be- 
fore. 

The  universe  above  is  greater.  Dur- 
ing all  that  period,  the  astronomer  has 
been  pointing  his  telescope  to  the  heav- 
ens, and  penetrating  the  fields  of  blue 
ether,  and  revealing  to  man  the  wonders 
of  the  distant  heavens ;  enlarging  the 
universe  by  all  those  measureless  dis- 


THKEESCOilE   AND   TEN. 


93 


lances  through  which  the  eye  has  been 
made  to  penetrate.  New  stars  have 
been  discovered  and  mapped  on  the 
great  chart  of  the  heavens ;  a  new  planet 
as  belonging  to  our  system  has  been 
found  from  the  fact  of  its  disturbing 
influence  on  those  before  known  — a 
planet  on  which  no  human  eye  ever 
before  rested;  a  vast  number  of  aste- 
roids, fragments  of  a  larger  planet,  have 
been  seen  to  revolve  between  the  orbit 
of  Mars  and  Jupiter ;  and  distant  neb- 
ula3,  floating  islands  in  the  measureless 
distance,  have  been  brought  into  view, 
and  resolved  into  distinct  and  separate 

worlds. 

The  world  hemath  is  greater  and  more 
wonderful  than  it  was.  The  microscope 
was  indeed  known,  as  was  the  telescope, 
seventy  years  ago;  but  it  had  just 
begun  to  reveal  the  world  beneath  us. 


n 


94  LIFE   AT 

It  has  not  finished  its  work,  but  it  has 
already  disclosed  a  universe  beneath  us 
as  unlimited  and  as  wonderful  as  that 
above  us.     It  has  peopled  every  leaf 
in  the  forest,  and  every  drop  of  water 
in  rivulets,  lakes,  and  oceans,  with  teem- 
ing multitudes  of  inhabitants,   amazing 
us  as  much  by  their  number,  and  by 
the  delicacy,  skill,  and  beauty  of  their 
organization,  as  the  telescope  does  by 
the  number  and  the  magnitudes  of  the 
worlds  above  us.      We  find  ourselves 
standing  thus  in  a  universe  extending 
inimitably  above  and  below  us,  as  in- 
comprehensible on  the  one  hand  as  on 
the  other :  boundless  space  above  filled 
up  with  worlds,  where  we  thought  there 
was  an  empty  void,  and  beneath  count- 
less myriads  of  beings  starting  into  life 
and  playing  their  little  part,  where  all 
seemed  to  be  l)lank. 


THREESCORE   AND   TEN.  95 

Our  own  earth  is  vaster  and   more 
grand  than  it  was.     Half  a  century  ago, 
the  prevailing — the  almost  universal  be- 
lief was,  that  the  earth  was  created  six 
thousand  years  ago,  in  its  essential  struc- 
ture as  it  is  now — rocks,  and  seas,  and 
rivers,  and  hills  having  been  called  into 
existence  as  they  now  are,  by  the  imme- 
diate command  of  God.     It  began,  in- 
deed, to  be  whispered  that  it  is  older, 
and  that  important  changes  had  occur- 
red upon  the  earth  before  man  appeared 
on  it;  or  that  the  earth  had  a  history 
before  the  history  of  the  human  race. 
I  remember  in  one  of  the  earliest  stages 
of  my  education,  meeting  with  a  remark 
by  Dr.  Chalmers,  designed  to  solve  some 
of  the  growing  difficulties  from  the  new 
science   of  geology,    that  between   the 
first  and  second  verses  of  the  book  of 
Genesis    there    might   be    supposed    to 


06 


LIFE   AT 


THllEESCORE   AND    TEN. 


97 


have  intervened  an  indefinite  period  of 
which  no  account  was  given,  the  pur- 
pose of  inspiration  having  been  first  to 
attest  the  general  truth  that  '' God  cre- 
ated the  heavens  and  the  earth,''^  or  to 
secure  this  belief  in  the  minds  of  men  in 
opposition  to  the  idea  that  the  world  is 
eternal,  or  is  the  work  of  fate  or  chance, 
and  then,  without  detailing  the  inter- 
mediate history  of  the  globe,  to  proceed 
at  once  to  the  main  purpose  of  the  vol- 
ume, the  history  of  the  creation,  the 
fall,  and  the  redemption  of  man;  that 
in  fact  the  earth  itself  may  have  existed 
through  a  vast  number  of  ages,  and  may 
have  gone  through  an  immense  number 
of  revolutions,  with  which  man  in  his 
history  was  not  particularly  concerned, 
or  which  did  not  bear  on  the  main  pur- 
pose of  the  volume — the  record  of  the 
fall  and  recovery  of  a  lost  race.    What 


was  then  almost  conjecture  in  regard  to 
the  past  history  of  the  earth,  has  been 
verified.  The  prevailing  opinions  re- 
specting its  recent  origin  have  been  set 
aside.  To  all  that  was  before  regarded 
as  grand  in  the  conception  of  the  earth, 
there  is  now  added  the  belief  that  it 
has  moved  on  its  axis  and  in  its  orbit 
millions  of  ages ;  that  successive  gener- 
ations of  animals  have  been  formed,  and 
have  acted  out  the  purpose  of  thoir  cre- 
ation, and  have  disappeared  for  ever; 
that  vast  changes  have  occurred  in  the 
waters  and  on  the  land,  displacing  each 
other,  and  peopled  again  with  new  myr- 
iads of  inhabitants  appropriate  to  each, 
and  then  again  to  pass  away  ;  that  im- 
mense deposits  of  minerals  had  been 
made  by  the  slow  progress  of  ages,  fit- 
ted for  the  use  of  an  order  of  beings 
that  had  not  yet  appeared ;  and  that  at 


Throcacore  and  Ten. 


98  LIFE   AT 

last  man,  to  whom  all  these  changes  had 
reference,  and  for  whom  all  the  pre- 
vious arrangements  were  designed,  ap- 
peared upon  the  earth,  a  being  of  higher 
order— the  last  in  the  series  that  was  to 
occupy  the  globe.  With  this  view  of 
the  past,  what  a  different  object  is  the 
earth  now  from  what  it  was  seventy 

years  ago ! 

A  large  part  of  the  discoveries  in  sci- 
ence, the  inventions  in  the  arts,  and  the 
arrangements  in  the  schemes  of  benevo- 
lence that  are  to  affect  future  times,  and 
whose  bearings  can  now  be  scarcely  ap- 
preciated, has  been  originated  also  in 
this  period  of  the  world.  The  power  of 
steam  was  not  indeed  unknown  before ; 
but  the  great  changes  which  it  is  destined 
to  produce  in  the  commerce  of  the  world 
are  the  results  of  the  inventions  of  this 
age.     The   railroad  and   the   magnetic 


TIIKEESCORE   AND   TEN.  09 

telegraph  have  been  originated  in  these 
times.     Every  science  has  been  pushed 
forward.     Elementary  books  of  instruc- 
tion have  been  changed,  and  those  which 
were  adapted  to  the  condition  of  the 
world  seventy  years  ago  would  be  use- 
less now.     If  I  were  now  to  begin  my 
education  again,  a  large  part  of  the  books 
which  I  studied  when  young  would  be 
valueless.     I  should,  indeed,  retain  my 
Homer,  my  Virgil,  and  my  Euclid ;  but 
the  books  in  which  I  sought  instruction 
in  chemistry  and  geography  and  natural 
philosophy,  would  no  longer  represent 
the  science  of  the  world,  or  convey  cor- 
rect views  to  my  mind.    The  books  which 
I  then  studied  belong  to  another  age, 
and  though  they  will  serve  to  mark  the 
steps  by  which  the  advances  of  science 
have  been  made,  they  will  never  again 
be  a  proper  exponent  of  the  true  state 


100  LIFE   AT 

of  knowledge  among  mankind.  I  see 
wonders  around  me  which  have  sprung 
up  anew.  Every  river,  lake,  and  ocean 
is  navigated  by  steam ;  an  iron  road  is 
laid  down  everywhere,  connecting  all 
parts  of  a  country  together,  along  which 
are  borne,  by  a  power  unapplied  when  I 
was  young,  the  productions  of  agricul- 
ture, manufactures,  and  the  arts,  with  a 
rapidity  and  a  precision  of  which  no  one 
then  could  have  formed  a  conception. 
A  mysterious  and  incomprehensible  net- 
work, like  spiders'  webs,  is  weaving  it- 
self over  all  lands,  and  making  its  way 
beneath  deep  waters,  by  which  thought 
is  transmitted  simultaneously  to  millions 
of  minds,  and  is  diffused  over  distant 
lands  regardless  of  mountains  and  of 
oceans.  How  different  such  a  world 
from  what  it  was  seventy  years  ago  ! 
In  the  same  time  there  have  sprung 


THREESCORE   AND   TEN. 


101 


also  into  being  arrangements,  then  un- 
known, no  less  adapted  to  affect  the  moral 
and  religious  condition  of  mankind.  The 
areat  enterpriseo  of  Christian  benevo- 
lence, yet  to  result  in  the  entire  conver- 
sion of  the  world  to  God,  have  been 
originated  in  that  time.  The  Bible  was 
indeed  in  men's  hands,  and  the  gospel 
was  preached,  and  the  power  of  the  press 
was  known,  but  the  serious  thought  had 
scarcely  found  its  way  into  the  minds  of 
the  friends  of  the  Saviour,  of  bringing 
the  combined  influence  of  these  agencies 
on  the  widest  scale  possible  to  bear  on 
the  unconverted  portions  of  the  race. 
Within  the  period  of  which  I  am  now 
speaking,  this  thought  has  taken  a  firm 
possession  of  the  Christian  mind  and 
heart,  and  the  great  work  of  the  world's 
conversion  has  been  entered  on  in  ear- 
nest.    The   Bible  has  been  translated 


i 


'  I 


102  LIFE   AT 

into   nearly   all  the   languages   of  the 
world  •  the  strongholds  of  the  earth  have 
been  occupied  as  missionary  stations; 
millions  of  children  arc  taught  the  great 
truths  of  Christianity  from  week  to  week 
in  Sabbath-schools ;  and  a  Christian  lit- 
erature is  spreading  its  influence  far  and 
near  over  nominally  Christian  and  Pagan 
lands.     Whatever  there  is  of  power  in 
these  arrangements  as  bearing  on  the 
future,  is  the  fruit  of  the  spirit  of  this 
ao-e  •  and  now,  in  reference  to  science,  to 
the  arts,  to  the  efforts  of  benevolence— 
to  the  world  above,  the  world  below,  the 
world  in  the  past,  and  the  world  around 
us,  the  man  of  threescore  years  and  ten 
sees  a  far  different,  a  much  larger  world 
than  it  was  when  he  began  to  live. 

4.  If  now  we  take  into  consideration 
this  idea  of  the  vast  enlargement  of  the 
boundaries  of  all  knowledge  during  the 


THUEESCOKE   AND   TEN.  103 

past  period  of  seventy  years ;  if  we  re- 
member how  different  the  world  is  from 
what  it  was  at  the  commencement  of  that 
period;  if  we  call  to  our  recollection 
what  has  been  done  in  the  way  of  discov- 
ery and  invention  during  that  period ;  if 
we  remember  how  much  more  of  the  earth 
has  been  explored  and  peopled  during 
that  period  ;  if  we  think  of  the  disclosures 
made  by  the  telescope  in  the  worlds 
above  us,  or  by  the  microscope  in  the 
worlds  beneath  us ;  if  we  think  of  the 
advances  in  the  sciences,  in  the  arts,  and 
in  the  arrangements  of  the  schemes  of 
benevolence   that  are  to   affect  future 
times,  and  to  determine  the  condition  of 
the   world   in  far -distant  ages;  if  wo 
attempt  to  follow  out  the  bearings  of  the 
use  of  steam  in  manufactures  and  in  com- 
merce by  land  and  by  sea ;  if  we  could 
estimate  the  inHuence  of  the  magnetic 


104 


LIFE   AT 


telegraph  on  the  affairs  of  nations ;  if  we 
conlcl  place  ourselves  back  at  the  year 
eighteen  hundred,  and  look  at  the  world 
as  it  was  then,  in  contrast  with  what  it  is 
now,  we  might  form  some  estimate  of 
what  it  has  been  to  have  lived  during 
these  seventy  years,  and  some  faint  con- 
ception of  what  are  and  must  be  the 
privileges  and  responsibilities  of  those 
who,  instead  of  ending  life,  are  about  to 
start  off  from  life's  beginning  on  the  more 
glorious  periods  of  the  next  seventy 
years:  for  to  all  human  appearance,  and 
beyond  all  question,  the  next  seventy 
years  will  be  more  remarkable  in  the 
progress  of  discovery,  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  human  powers,  in  the  diffu- 
sion of  the  principles  of  liberty,  and  in 
the  spread  of  the  true  religion,  than  any 
past  period  of  the  world.  If  one  about 
to  leave  the  world  might  shrink  from  its 


THREESCORE   AND   TEN.  105 

responsibilities  in  living  in  such  a  period 
as  that  which  is  to  succeed  the  present, 
yet  he  might  be  pardoned  for  being  con- 
scious, as  I  am,  of  a  strong  desire  to  wit- 
ness the  glory,  the  honor,  and  the  prog- 
ress of  my  native  land,  of  the  church, 
and  of  the  world  in  such  a  coming  age. 
There  has  never  been  a  period  when  the 
prospects  of  the  future  were  so  bright 
and  glorious ;   there  has  never  been  a 
period  when,  to  a  man  on  the  verge  of 
the  grave,  such  a  desire  could  have  been 
so  natural  or  so  pardonable,  or  when 
the  regret  at  leaving  the  world  could 
have  been  so  profound. 

Our  own  country  furnishes  a  better 
illustration  of  the  thought  which  I  am 
presenting  than  any  other  portion  of  the 
world.  The  period  of  threescore  and 
ten  years  to  which  I  am  now  adverting, 
ben-an  at  the  death  of  Washington,  and 


106 


LIFE   AT 


wlicii  tlie  effects  of  his  illustrious  servi- 
ces and  the  principles  of  his  policy  were 
just  beginning  to  develop  themselves. 
A  new  nation  was  just  founded.  A  new 
and  but  partially  tried  Constitution  had 
been  adopted.  The  experiment  of  self- 
government  had  not  yet  been  fully  tried. 
There  were  many  doubts  and  many  mis- 
givings about  the  working  of  the  new 
government  under  any  circumstances; 
there  were  more  doubts  as  to  the  ques- 
tion whether  the  form  of  government 
could  be  adapted  to  a  nation  of  many 
j^illloiis— to  vast  and  numerous  states 
with  very  varied  interests— to  a  popula- 
tion spreading  over  a  continent.  There 
were  then  sixteen  states  in  the  Union. 
There  was  a  population  of  scarcely  five 
millions.  A  narrow  strip  of  territory  on 
the  Atlantic  coast,  scarcely  now  appre- 
ciable on  a  map,  had  been  snl)dued  and 


TIIREESCOKE   AND  TEN.  107 

cultivated ;  tbcvc  were  a  few  small  com- 
mercial towns-vvliat  would  now  be  call- 
ed ^r%es-Charleston,  Baltimore,  Phil- 
adelphia, New  York,  Boston,  on  that 
coast;  the  great  West  had  not  been  ex- 
plored even  by  the  most  hardy  travel- 
lers- California,  Oregon,  Nevada,  Ne- 
braska, Minnesota,  Kansas,  were  as  much 
unknown  as  is  now  the  centre  of  Africa. 
If  I  remember  right,  Mr.  Monroe,  when 
president,  recommended  that  the  vast 
and  fertile  lands  of  what  now  constitutes 
the  state  of  Iowa,  should  be  appropria- 
ted as  a  reservation  to  the  Indian  tribes 
as  a  region  so  remote  that  it  would  not 
be  likely  to  be  invaded  and  disturbed 
by  the  progress  of  civilization.    No  one 
could  then  anticipate  what  seveaty  years 
were  to  produce  iu  our  country  under 
any  ordinary  system  of  developmentthen 

kiuv-vn  ;  still  less  could  any  one  have  an- 


I 


108  LIFE    AT 

ticipatecl  the  new  powers  which  would 
be  brought  into  existence  for  navio-atincr 
our  rivers  and  lakes,  for  conveying  iritel- 
ligence,  for  facilitating  commerce,  for  the 
development  of  the  vast  unknown  re- 
sources of  the  land.     That  same  nation 
now— what  is  it  as  compared  with  what 
it  was  then!     What  a  history  has  been 
the    history    of    these    seventy   years! 
What  a  place  will  that  history  occupy  in 
the  general  history  of  the  world  !     What 
a  nation  is  this  as  compared  with  what 
it  was  at  the  end  of  the  last  centurv ! 
And  though  a  man  may  himself  have 
taken  no  part  in  these  great  movements , 
though  he  may  have  contributed  nothing 
to  make  his  country  what  it  is ;  though 
lie  will  soon  pass  away  and  his  name 
never  be  remembered ;  yet,  any  one  who 
has  lived  through  this  period  may  be 
pardoned  for  self-congratulation  that  the 


THREESCORE   AND   TEN.  109 

beginning  and  the  close  of  his  life  em- 
brace   such  a   period,   and   for   finding 
satisfaction  in  the  thought  that  he  has 
been  permitted  to  witness  the  develop- 
ments of  these  seventy  years.     He  who 
loves  his   country  may  rejoice  in  the 
thought  that  he  has  seen  it  pass  safely 
through  the  times  of  its  greatest  danger ; 
that  when,  as  soon  he  must,  he  closes  his 
eyes  on  human  things,  he  will  see  that 
country  free  in  every  part,  and  in  refer- 
ence to  every  one  of  its  citizens  ;  that  he 
will  see  a  constitution  which  has  been 
put  to  the  utmost  test,  and  which  has 
been  found  equal  to  the  test ;  that  he  will 
see  a  government  that  in  respect  to  vig- 
or and  adaptedness  to  a  vast  territory 
equals  the  hopes  of  the  most  sanguine, 
and  surpasses  the  expectations  of  most 
of  its  founders;   that  he  will  sec   one 
great  united  people,  destined,  in  all  hu- 


k 


i 


no  LIFE   AT 

man  probability,  to  accomplish  more  for 
the  good  of  man  than  all  the  nations  of 
antiquity  have  done,  or  than  is  to  be 
accomplished  by  any  existing  people  oa 
the  globe. 


THREESCOBE  AND  TEN, 


111 


IV. 

I  HAVE  spoken  of  the  past  as  the  past 
now  appears  to  me.  It  remains  that  I 
should  say  a  few  words  of  the  future  from 
the  same  point  of  view,  near  the  close  ol 
what  is  commonly  regarded  as  a  long 

life. 

It  would  be  a  proper  questiou  for  any 

one  to  ask  of  a  man  who  has  reached 

that  age ;  who  may  have  been  for  half  a 

century  occupied  in  public  life ;  whose 

position  has  given  him  an  opportunity  of 

extensive  observation  and  of  intercourse 

Avith  the  world;  who  has  passed  that 

time  in  a  period  when  the  world  has 

undergone  more  important  changes,  and 

made  more  rapid  progress  than  at  any 


m. 


112  MFE  AT 

former  period ;  whose  professional  call- 
ing has  made  it  his  duty  to  acquaint  him- 
self with  books  and  with  the  opinions 
that  prevail  in  his  time  on  morals,  phi- 
losophy, and  religion— how  the  world 
seems  in  regard  to  the  future.     Is  it 
dark  and  gloomy,  or  is  it  bright  and 
hopeful  ?    Is  it  growing  better  or  worse  ? 
Is  there  hope  for  the  future,  or  is  the 
mind  overwhelmed  with  sad  forebodings? 
Has  the  world  made  progress,  or  is  it  in 
a  retrograde  movement?    Is  there  hope 
for  those  in  earlier  life— hope  for  their 
country,  hope  for  the  church,  hope  for 
the  interests  of  religion,  of  humanity,  of 
liberty  ?    Does  it  seem  now  that  all  that 
cheered  in  the  days  of  youth,  and  that 
prompted  to  generous  aspirations  then, 
was  illusive,  false,  and  vain?     Could  a 
man,   with  the  experience   of  seventy 
years,  now  enter  on  life  with  any  bright 


THREESCORE  AND   TEN.  113 

hopes  of  the  future— with  anything  to 
stimulate  and  animate  in  reference  to  the 
prospects  of  the  race  ?  These  are  fair 
questions  for  any  one  to  ask.  He  who 
has  reached  the  period  of  threescore  and 
ten,  ought  to  be  able  to  answer  them. 

It  cannot  be  denied,  as  I  have  already 
remarked,  that  there  are  aged  men  who 
see  nothing  but  darkness  and  gloom  in 
the  prospects  of  mankind  ;  who  feel  that 
the  world  is  much  worse  than  it  was  when 
they  looked  out  on  it  in  youth,  full  of 
hope ;  who  despair  of  any  permanent  ref- 
ormation of  the  race,  and  of  the  removal 
of  existing  evils  by  any  means  that  man 
can  employ,  or  by  any  development  of 
principles  already  existing,  and  who  look 
for  the  removal  of  those  evils  only  by 
Bome  new  and  miraculous  Divine  mani- 
festation ;  who  anticipate  that  the  world 
is  to  become  worse  until  the  necessity  of 


■n. 


li   I.  a 


8 


I 


lU  LIFE   AT 

such  intervention  sliall  become  apparent 
to  all  men  in  the  utter  failure  of  all  hu- 
man efforts  at  improvement  and  reform. 
Nor  can  it  be  denied   that   there   are 
many  in  early  life  who  suppose  that  these 
are  the  common  views  and  feelings  of  old 
men  ;  that  aged  men  are  necessarily  pee- 
vish, disappointed,  soured,  and  melan- 
choly;  and   that,    whatever  may  have 
been  their  early  hopes  in  regard  to  the 
world,   their  sun  is  setting   amid   thick 
clouds  and  darkness.    Is  this  necessarily 
so  ?     Have  aged  men  no  better  views  or 
prospects  than  these  to  set  before  those 
who  are  to  succeed  them  on  the  great 
theatre  of  human  afiiiirs  ? 

These  questions  naturally  divide  them- 
selves into  two  parts,  or  relate  to  two 
subjects:  First,  how  a  man  at  "three- 
score and  ten"  regards  the  future  pros- 
pects of  this  world.    Second,  how  he  him- 


THREESCORE   AND  TEN.  115 

self  feels  in  regard  to  the  future  state,  or 
what  are  his  hopes  in  reference  to  that 
world  on  which  he  is  so  soon  to  enter. 

For  very  obvious  reasons  there  would 
be  an  impropriety  in  referring  in  this 
manner  to  the  latter.  The  remarks  which 
I  shall  make,  therefore,  will  pertain  only 
to  the  former. 

The  opinion  which  I  shall  express  may 
have  little  value  in  itself.  It  will  show, 
however,  that  an  aged  man  may  take 
cheerful  views  of  life,  of  the  world,  of 
the  certain  progress  of  the  race,  of  the 
destiny  of  man.  What,  then,  are  the 
prospects  of  the  world  in  regard  to  the 

future  ? 

I  look  at  two  things :  at  the  predic- 
tions in  the  Bible,  and  at  the  course  of 
events,  as  tending  to  the  fulfilment  of 
those  predictions. 

1.  The  predictions  in  the  Bible.     Be- 


116  ■  LIFE   AT 

lieving,  as  I  have  believed  for  fifty  years, 
that  the  Bible  is  a  revelation  from  God, 
and  confirmed  more  and  more,  as  I  have 
been,  in  that  belief  by  the  study  of  that 
volume  for  more  than  forty  years,  I  nat- 
urally turn  to  it  alike  in  reference  to  the 
future  condition  of  this  world,  and  to  my 
own  hopes.     I  find  there,  as  pertaining 
to  the  prospects  of  the  world,  such  state- 
ments as  the  following:  "The  wilderness 
and  the  solitary  place  shall  be  gkd,  and 
the  desert  shall  rejoice  and  blossom  as 
the  rose."    Isa.  35  : 1.     "  The  wolf  shall 
dwell  with  the  lamb,  and  the  leopard 
shall  lie  down  with  the  kid ;  and  the 
calf,  and  the  young  lion,  and  the  fatling 
together;  and  a  little  child  shall  lead 
them.     They  shall  not  hurt  nor  destroy 
in  all  my  holy  mountain ;  for  the  earth 
shall  be  full  of  the  knowledge  of  the 
Lord,  as  the  waters  cover  the  sea."    Isa. 


THKEESCOKE   AKD   TEN.  117 

11:6-9.     "Violence  shall  no  more  be 
heard  in  thy  land,  wasting  nor  destruc- 
tion within  thy  borders;  but  thou  shalt 
call  thy  walls  Salvation,  and  thy  gates 
Praise."^    The  sun  shall  be  no  more  thy 
light  by  day  ;  neither  for  brightness  shall 
the  moon  give  light  unto  thee :  but  the 
Lord  shall  be  unto  thee  an  everlasting 
light,  and  thy  God  thy  glory.    Thy  sun 
shall  no  more  go  down ;  neither  shall  thy 
moon  withdraw  itself:  for  the  Lord  shall 
be  thine  everlasting  light,  and  the  days 
of  thy  mourning  shall  be  ended.     Thy 
gates  shall  be  open  continually;  they 
shall  not  be  shut  day  nor  night ;  that 
men  may  bring  unto  thee  the  forces  of 
the  Gentiles,  and  that  their  kings  may 
be  brought."     Isa.  ch.  60.     "Unto  us  a 
Child  is  born,  unto  us  a  Son  is  given ; 
and  the  government  shall  be  upon  his 
shoulder :  and  his  name  shall  be  called 


•i< 


nai 


118  LIFE   AT 

Wonderful,  Counsellor,  The  mighty  God, 
The  everlasting  Father,  The  Prince  of 
Peace.     Of  the  increase  of  his  govern- 
ment and  peace  there  shall  be  no  end, 
upon  the  throne  of  David,  and  upon  his 
kingdom,  to  order  it,  and  to  establish  it 
with  judgment  and  with  justice,  from 
henceforth  even  for  ever."     Isa.  9  :  6,  7. 
"He  shall  have  dominion  also  from  sea 
to  sea,  and  from  the  river  unto  the  ends 
of  the  earth.    In  his  days  shall  the  right- 
eous flourish ;   and  abundance  of  peace 
so  long  as  the  moon  cndureth.    His  name 
shall  endure  for  ever :  his  name  shall  be 
continued  as  long  as  the  sun ;  and  men 
shall  be  blessed  in  him :  all  nations  shall 
call  him  blessed."    Psa.  72.     "I  saw  in 
the  night  visions,  and,  behold,  one  like 
the  Son  of  man  came  with  the  clouds  of 
heaven, ...  and  there  was  given  him  do- 
minion, and  glory,  and  a  kingdom,  that 


THKEESCOEE   ASD   TEN.  119 

all  people,  nations,  and  languages  should 
serve  him:  his  dominion  is  an  everlast- 
ing dominion,  which  shall  not  pass  away, 
and  his  kingdom  that  which  shall  not 
be  destroyed.     And  the  kingdom  and 
dominion,  and  the  greatness  of  the  kmg- 
dom  under  the  whole  heaven,  shall  be 
given  to  the  people  of  the  saints  of  the 
Most  High."    Dan.  ch.  7.    To  such  a 
time,  when  peace  and  righteousness  and 
prosperity  and  knowledge  and  pure  reli- 
gion shall  pervade   the  earth,  all  the 
prophecies  in  the  Sacred  Scriptures  un- 
doubtedly tend.     No  one  can  close  the 
perusal  of  the  Bible  without  the  feelmg 
that,  according  to  that  book,  the  time  is 
coming  when  universal  peace  will  prevail 
on  the  earth,  and  when  the  true  religion, 
with  all  its  unspeakable  blessings,  will 
pervade  the  world.    The  prophetic  wri- 
ters, many  of  whom  were  aged  men,  and 


120 


LIFE   AT 


I 


many  of  whom  had  experienced  much  of 
the  depravity  of  the  world,  and  many  of 
whom  had  lived  in  times  of  crime  and 
disaster,  were  not  gloomy,  sad,  dispir- 
ited, morose,  and  disappointed  men.  No 
men  have  ever  lived  who  have  cherished 
brighter  views  of  the  future  condition  of 
man ;  no  heathen  sages  or  philosophers 
were  so  cheerful  and  hopeful  when  they 
looked  onward  to  the  future  state  of  the 
world.  How  can  a  man  who  believes 
that  book,  and  who  confides  in  those  pre- 
dictions, look  with  dark  and  sad  forebo- 
dings on  the  future  ?  How  can  he  be- 
lieve that  the  affairs  of  men  are  destined 
constantly  to  grow  worse  ? 

2.  The  course  of  events.  I  believe 
that  this  coincides  now  with  the  predic- 
tions in  the  Bible  in  regard  to  the  future 
in  our  world.  I  think  I  see  indications 
that  human  affairs  are  tending  to  that 


THREESCORE   AND   TEN.  121 

state  when  science,  liberty,  justice,  pure 
morals,  and  the  Christian  religion  will 
pervade  the  earth ;  when  all  those  pre- 
dictions in  the  sacred  volume  will  be 
accomplished.     I  look  at  these  things : 

(1.)  In  the  progress  of  human  affairs 
nothing  is  lost  that  is  of  value.      We 
have  all  now  that  w^as  valuable  in  Egyp- 
tian, Grecian,  Roman,  Alexandrian,  or 
Arabian  civilization,  alike  in  their  phi- 
losophy, their  science,  their  arts,  their 
jurisprudence,  their  principles  of  free- 
dom.    Nothing  that  was  ever  of  value 
to  mankind  has  been  lost ;  there  is  noth- 
ing which  has  been  lost  of  which  the 
world  would  be  the  gainer   now  if  it 
could  be   recovered;   there  is   nothing 
which  has  been  dropped  which  has  not 
been  superseded  by   something  better, 
and  superseded  by  it  because  it  is  better. 
In  like  manner,  nothing  can  hereafter 


#1 


122  LIFE   AT 

destroy  those  great  improvements  and 
inventions  whicli  have  contributed   so 
much  to  the  world's  progress  in  our  time. 
Combined  with  that  which  the  past  has 
transmitted  to  us,  these  things  go  into 
that  vast  accumulation  of  forces  which 
are  to  mould  and  bless  the  world  in  all 
time  to  come.     What  can  now  destroy 
the  printing-press,  the   telescope,   the 
microscope,  the  railroad,  the  steamboat, 
the  magnetic  telegraph  ?    What  can  now 
obliterate  from  the  memory  of  mankind 
those  great  principles  of  justice,  of  lib- 
erty, and  of  law,  which  enter  into  mod- 
ern civilization? 

(2.)  The  old  systems  that  have  tyran- 
nized over  men  have  lost  their  power, 
and  have  died  out,  or  are  dying  out  never 
to  be  revived.  This  is  true  alike  in  reli- 
gion and  in  all  forms  of  civil  government. 
In  religion.     The  systems  of  ancient 


THKEESCOEE   AND   TEN.  123 

Paganism  have  died  out  never  to  be  re- 
vived.   There  is  not  now  on  the  earth  a 
worshipper  of  the  ancient  gods  of  Baby- 
lor.,  of  Egypt,  of  Greece,  or  of  Rome,  and 
not  one  of  the  temples  erected  for  their 
'worship  will  be  rebuilt  or  repaired.  The 
temple  of  Bel  in  Babylon,  the  magnifi- 
cent structures  in  Thebes,  the  Parthenon 
at  Athens,  and  the  Pantheon  at  Rome, 
are  desolate  for  ever  so  far  as  the  de- 
sign for  which  they  were  raised  is  con- 
ce"rned ;  nor  is  there  now,  nor  will  there 
be  hereafter,  a  single  human  being  who 
will  ever  offer  a  bloody  sacrifice  there, 
or  cast  a  grain  of  incense  on  their  altars. 
All  that  there  was  in  those  religions  to 
degrade  mankind,  or  to  pander  to  vice, 
has  passed  away  never  to  be  revived. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  existing  sys- 
tems of  Paganism.  Whatever  may  be 
the  power  or  influence  of  such  systema 


121  LIFE    A.T 

on  the  world  up  to  a  certain  period  in 
society,  a  time  comes  when  that  power 
ceases,  and  when  they  show  themselves 
not  to  be  adapted  to  an  advanced  period 
of  the  world.     It  might  be  difficult  to 
prove  that  the  systems  of  Paganism  in 
the  Babylonian  Empire,  in  Egypt,   in 
Greece,  or  in  Eome,  materially  inter- 
fered with  the  civilization  of  those  states 
and  kingdoms  up  to  the  point  which  they 
actually  reached  ;  it  might,  in  like  man- 
ner, be  difficult  to  prove  that  the  systems 
of  Brahminism  or  Buddhism  have  inter- 
fered with  the  civilization  of  India  or 
China  up  to  the  point  which  they  have 
reached,  but  it  is  clear  that  neither  could 
be  adapted  to  a  higher  civilization ;  in 
other  words,  that  if  the  sciences  and  arts 
existing  in  Europe  should  be  transferred 
to  India  or  China,  those  religions  must 
vanish.   They  cannot  be  adjusted  to  that 


THEEESCOEE    ASD   TEN. 


125 


state  of  higher  development,  but  must 
retard  and  oppose  it.  They  have  had 
their  day,  and  have  exhausted  them- 
selves, and  are  destined  to  lose  their 
hold  on  the  world,  whatever  may  suc- 
ceed them :  in  other  words,  they  are  des- 
tined to  die  out,  as  have  the  old  systems 
of  Babylon  and  Rome. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  Papal  power. 
It  has  had  its  day.     Does  any  one  now 
believe  that  the  power  which  was  wield- 
ed over  the  nations  of  Europe  by  Greg- 
ory VII.,  by  Innocent  III.,  or  by  Boni- 
face VIII.,  can  be  revived?     Can  the 
power  of  dethroning  kings  and  of  laying 
kingdoms  under  an  interdict  be  restored  ? 
Will  the  time  come  again  when  princes 
will  turn  pale  on  their  thrones,  and  na- 
tions tremble,  at  the  threatening  of  an 
Italian  priest?     Can  the  Inquisition  be 
revived  again  in  the  world?    Is  there  to 


12G  I-IFE  AT 

be  another  Philip  11.  ;  another  duke  of 
Alva  to  drench  whole  provinces  in  the 
blood  of  martyrs ;  another  Mary  to  light 
again  the  fires  of  Smithfield?  To  ask 
these  questions  is  to  answer  them.* 

In  matters   of   civil  government. 
The  old  dynasties  that  tyrannized  over 
man  have  likewise  passed  away,  never 
to  be  reestablished.     The  tendency  in 
civil  affairs  is  everywhere  to  liberty,  to 
equality,  to  the  overthrow  of  the  old 
systems  of  tyranny ;  to  the  establishment 
of  institutions  founded  on  the  rights  of 
man.     Can  the  days  of  Nero,  of  Caligu- 
la, of  Philip  II.,  of  Eichard  III.,  and  of 
Henry   VIII.    return    again?      "Would 
such  men  be  permitted  now  to  occupy 
any  of  the  thrones  of  earth  ?   No.    Those 

*  For  a  fuU  illustration  and  proof  of  this  point, 
compare  Hallam's  "View  of   the  State  of  Europe 
during    the    Middle   Agea,"   vol.    1,   chap.    7,    pp 
402-496. 


THKEESCOnE   AND   TEN.  127 

days  have  passed.     The  scenes  which 
occurred  under  their  reigns  are  not  to 
be  renewed.     There  is  a  spirit  abroad 
in  the  world— in  all  the  world— which 
would  prevent  it,  and  the  bloody  scenes 
of  civil  tyranny,  as  well  as  of  fiery  reli- 
gious persecution,  pertain  to  the  past. 
Whatever  may  occur,  the  future  histo- 
rian will  have  no  such  deeds  to  record, 
and  the  catalogue  of  monsters  on  thrones 
is  filled  up.     Nations  would  combine 
against  such  monsters,  and  fleets  and 
armies  would  hasten  to  hurl  them  from 

their  thrones. 

(3.)  I  look  then  at  the  accumulation  of 
the  forces  now  in  existence  in  favor  of 
progress,  of  order,  of  law,  of  liberty,  of 
just  government,  of  the  rights  of  man,  of 
truth,  of  religion. 

Those  forces  consist  of  all  the  discov- 
eries and  inventions  of  ancient  and  mod- 


128  LIFE   AT 

em  times ;  of  all  that  has  been  accom- 
plished in  the  arts,  in  philosophy,  in 
jurisprudence,  in  medicine^  in  law,  in 
political  science,  in  theology ;  of  the  re- 
corded results  of  all  the  profound  think- 
ing of  the  great  intellects  of  the  world ; 
of  all  that  constitutes  modern  civiliza- 
tion; of  all  that  tends  to  progress  in 
agriculture  and  the  mechanic  arts ;  of  all 
the  arrangements  for  domestic  comfort ; 
and  of  all  that  enters  into  the  merchan- 
dise and  commerce  of  the  nations  of  the 
earth.    It  is  to  be  remembered  that  the 
tendency  of  each  and  all  these  things  is 
to  elevate,  and  not  to  debase  and  de- 
grade mankind ;  that  each  and  all  move 
the  world  forward  and  not  backward. 
It  is  to  be  remembered,  also,  that  all 
these  things  arc  really  connected  with 
the  interests  and  happiness  of  mankind, 
and  that  the  world  will  sooner  or  later 


TUUEESCOliE   AND   TEN.  129 

perceive  this,  and  act  on  the  idea ;  for 
nothing   is  plainer  than  that  industry,, 
temperance,  justice,  honesty,  truth,  char- 
ity, knowledge -that  all   the  virtues, 
including  all  that  there  is  in  true  reli- 
gion, really  coincide  with  the  prosperity 
and  happiness  of  nations  and  individuals, 
nay  that  they  are  essential  to  prosperity 
and'happiness.   The  world,  slow  in  learn- 
im  it,  is  beginning  to  see  this.     It  will 
ultimately  perceive  it  clearly.    Men  will 
not  always  be  blind  to  their  own  real 
interests,  and  all  these  things,  therefore, 
constitute  a  vast  accumulation  of  forces- 
the  gathered  results  of  ages— bearing  on 
the  future  welfare  of  the  race,  and  ma- 
king certain  the  future  prosperity  and 
happiness  of  the  world. 

(4.)  I  look,  then,  at  the  accumulation 
of  these  things  in  their  relation  to  Chris- 
tianity, and  to  the  probability  of  itsprev- 


1  V;\r.'i  '»>-•  -'"1  ''  "• 


r 


130  LIFE   AT 

aleuce  iu  the  world.    It  niigbt  be  shown. 
-I  think,  that  this  is  the  only  existing  form 
of  religion  that  promises  to  be  permanent 
on  the  earth,  or  that  if  there  is  to  be 
ultimately  a  universal  religion,  this  is  the 
only  one  that  would  be  adapted  to  such 
universality  in  the  higher  forms  of  prog- 
ress to  which  the  race  will  rise.     As  I 
have  already  remarked,  the  ancient  sys- 
tems will  not  be  revived,  and  there  is  no 
one  of  the  existing  forms  of  heathenism 
that  is  making  progress  against  Christi- 
anity ;  no  one,  in  flxct,  that  is  not  silently 
melting  away  before  it. 

But  this  is  not  precisely  the  idea  which 
I  am  now  submitting  tx)  your  considera- 
tion. It  is,  that  those  things  to  which  T 
have  referred  as  forces  acting  on  society 
and  the  world,  have  a  close,  I  believe, 
an  essential  connection  with  Christianity. 
Tlicv  become  incorporated  with  it.  They 


THREESCORE   AND   TEN.  131 

go  with  it.  They  carry  Christianity  with 
themselves  wherever  they  go.  For,  those 
things  which  now  most  mark  the  progress 
of  the  world,  have  been  originated  in  close 
connection  with  Christianity ;  if  not  di- 
rectly 5y  it,  yet  in  connection  with  it,  and 
under  its  fostering  care.  The  art  of  print- 
ing, the  mariner's  needle  for  any  practi- 
cal purposes,  the  labor-saving  machines, 
steam,  the  magnetic  telegraph,  the  im- 
provements in  naval  architecture,  {he 
comforts  of  domestic  life,  the  telescope, 
the  microscope — these,  and  similar  things, 
have  either  been  originated  by  Christi- 
anity, or  have  grown  up  with  it,  and  are 
identified  with  it,  and  go  forth  with  it 
wherever  it  is  diflfused.  They  are  io  be 
connected,  and  not  to  be  separated,  ia 
all  time  to  come. 

It  is  to  be  borne  in  mind,  also,  that 
the  commerce  of  the  world  is  mainlv  in 


J32  I-IFE   AT 

the  hauds  of  Christian  nations,  and,  for 
the  most  part,  is  conducted  by  Proies- 
iant  nations.     A  Chinese  or  a  Hindoo 
ship  never  crosses  the  ocean  for  pur- 
poses of  commerce ;  Africa  sends  forth 
no  vessels  for  commercial  purposes  ex- 
cept  those   which  have  been  built  or 
bought  by  a  Christian  colony  ;  savage 
islands  send  forth  none;  and  few  are 
those,  and  those  not  increasing,  which 
sail  from   Eoman-catholic    i)orts— from 
Spain,  or  Portugal,  or  Italy,  or  Brazil, 
or  Austria— from   any  Eoman-catholic 
ports  save  those  of  France.     The  ten- 
dencies of  trade  and  commerce  are  to 
spread  the  Christian  religion ;  to  impress 
the  world  with  the  value  of  that  religion ; 
to  open  the  way  for  its  diffusion ;  to  se- 
cure its  diffusion  in  the  best  and  purest 
form  in  which  that  religion  exists— in 
the  form  of  Protestantism.     No  one,  it 


THEEESCOllE    AND   TEN.  133 

seems  to  me,  can  doubt  what  is  to  be  the 
ultimate  result  of  these  great  movements 
on  the  destinies  of  man. 

(5.)  From  this  point  the  world  will 
not  go  back.     C-in  we  believe  that  from 
all  this  the  world  is  to  recede  to  the 
savage  state ;  that  the  experience  of  the 
past°is  to  be  of  no  value  in  regard  to 
the  future  ;  that  the  race  is  to  relapse 
into  barbarism  ;  that  the  world  is  delib- 
erately to  prefer  the  state  of  society 
which  existed  before  Greece  and  Rome 
were  civilized-the  civilization  of  the 
middle  ages  in  Europe,  or  the  low  state 
of  civilization  in  India  or  China— to  that 
which  exists  in  Cxcrraany,  in  France,  in 
England,  in  the  United  States  of  Amer- 
ica?   What  is  to  become  of  the  printing 
press  ;  of  the  telegraph  ;  of  the  machin- 
ery now  driven  by  steam;  of  obser- 
vatories ;  of  the  telescope  ;  of  the  mi- 


134 


LIFE   AT 


croscope  ;  of  the  mariner's  compass  ;  of 
the  quadrant ;  of  reaping  machines,  and 
mowing  machines,  and  sewing  machines  ? 
What  is  to  become  of  the   works  of 
Bacon,  and  Newton,  and  Shakespeare, 
and  Milton  ?    What  is  to  become  of  the 
treatise  of  Adam  Smith  on  the  Wealth 
of  Nations?    What  is  to  become  of  our 
school  books?    What  is  to  become  of 
the  Bible  ?    No.    These  things  are  not 
to  be  lost  to  the  world.     They  consti- 
tute a  defence    against   the  return  of 
ignorance,  of  despotism,  of  slavery,  of 
superstition,  of  the  inquisition,  of  sav- 
age barbarity.     All  this  accumulation 
of  forces  tends  in  one  direction— experi- 
ence, science,  the  wisdom  of  the  past, 
commerce,   inventions  in  the  arts,  all 
are  connected  with  law  and  order;  with 
peace  and  prosperity  ;  with  liberty  and 
the  rights  of  man.   They  are  never  to  be 


THREESCORE  ANU   TEK.  135 

identilicd  with  ancient  pagan  systems  of 
religion  revived,  or  with  modern  pagan 
systems;  with  universal  anarchy;  with 

tyranny;  with  slavery;  with  skepticism. 

TUey  will  have  their  widest  prevalence, 

,    .  t    fr,y  vAnehinf    influence 

and  their  most   far-icaciun 

only  when  the  Christian  religion  shall 
pervade  the  world. 

^  And  can  a  man,  looking  at  these 
things,  be  gloomy,  doubtful  disappoint 
ed,  sad,  in  reference  to  the  future  cond - 

,on  of  the  world?    Shall  he  cose  h.  M 
in  darkness  and  despair  in  regaid  to  the 
earthwhichhe  is  about  to  leave  ?^«J^ 

he  who  has  lived  seventy  years  at  such 
an  eventful  period  as  this ;  who  has 
marked  the  progress  of  things  ior  that 
long  course  of  years ;  who  --pares  the 
present  with  what  the  world  was  when 
he  entered  on  ^-can  such  a  man  be 
desponding,  gloomy,  sad  ?     And  can  or 


136  LIFE   AT 

should  a  young  man  wlio  looks  out  on 
the  world  on  which  he  is  about  to  enter, 
can  or  should  he  look  forward  only  to 
anticipated  disorder,  darkness,  augment- 
od  crime,  anarchy  and  the  loss  of  all 
these  things?  Docs  he  enter  on  a  field 
where  there  is  nothing  to  cheer  and 
animate  him  in  honorable  efforts  for  the 
good  of  mankind?  No,  no.  Never  in 
the  history  of  the  world  did  young  men 
enter  on  their  career  with  so  much  to 
cheer  them,  to  animate  them,  to  inspire 
them  with  hope,  to  call  forth  their  high- 
est powers  for  the  promotion  of  the 
great  objects  which  enter  into  the  civil- 
ization, the  progress,  and  the  happiness 
of  man. 

The  opinions  oi  a  man  at  seventy 
years  of  age  have  been  long  maturing, 
and  he  is  not  likely,  materially,  to  change 
them.     I  shall  cherish  these  views  till 


THEEESCORE   AND   TEN.  137 

I  die,  and  I  shall  close  my  eyes  in  death 
with  bright  and  glorious  hopes  in  regard 
to  my  native  land,  to  the  church,  and 
to  the  world  at  large ;  I  hope  and  trust, 
also,  with  a  more  bright  and  glorious 
hope  in  reference  to  the  world  to  which 

I  shall  go. 

My  work  for  good  or  for  evil  is  done. 
I  cannot  go  back  and  repair  what  has 
been  amiss ;  I  cannot  now  do  what  has 
been  left  undone ;  I  cannot  do  in  a  bet- 
ter manner  what  has  been  imperfectly 
performed;  I  cannot  recover  the  hours 
that  have  been  wasted  ;  I  cannot  correct 
the  evils  which  may  have  resulted  from 
my  errors  ;  I  cannot  overtake  and  arrest 
what  I  have  spoken  or  written,  as  it 
has  gone  out  into  the  world ;  I  cannot 
summon  back  the  opportunities  for  use- 
fulness which  have  been  neglected  ;  I 
cannot  obliterate  the  reality  or  the  mem- 


J38  LIFE   AT 

ory  of  wrong  thoughts,   or  wrong  mo- 
tives, or  wrong  words,  or  wrong  actions. 
All  that  has  been  thought  or  said  or 
done   in   these   seventy   years  has   be- 
come fixed  as  a  reality  never  now  to 
be   changed.      Past  errors   and   follies 
may  be  forgiven,  but  they  are  never  to 
be  changed.     The  hope  of  a  man  at  sev- 
enty years  of  age— at  any  age— is  not 
that  the  errors,  and  sins,  and  follies  of 
the  past  can  be  changed:  it  is  only  that 
they  may  be  pardoned  by  a  merciful 
God ;  that  they  be  covered  over  by  the 
blood   of  the   atonement;    that   though^ 
they  must  remain  for  ever  as /ads— facts 
fully  known  to  the  Great  Searcher  of 
hearts  — their  guilt   may  be   so  taken 
away  that  they  will  not  be  punished ; 
that  by  the  blood  shed  on  the  cross  they 
themselves  may  be  so  covered  over— so 
hidden— that  they  will  not  be  disclosed 


TIIIIEESCORE    AND   TEN.  139 

on  the  final  trial  before  assembled  worlds. 
That  hope  the  religion  of  Christ  offers  to 
all.    But  to  all  it  is  a  fact  that  life,  in  all 
4*3  thoughts,  words,  actions,  becomes j^ajecZ 
md  unchangealle,  as  it  passes  along— as 
if  z  river  should  become  petrified  as  its 
waters  flow  on  towards  the  ocean,  wheth- 
er its  waters  be  pure  or  impure,  clear  or 
turbid— fixed  with  all  that  they  bear  on 
their  surface,  or  carry  forward  in  their 
deep  volume.    How  different  would  men 
try  to  make  their  lives  if  they  felt  hab- 
itually that  all— literally  all— that  they 
do,  or  say,  or  think — even  their  most 
fugitive   thoughts— becomes   thus   fixed 
and  unchangeable /or  ever. 

All  men  are  imperfect  j  and  a  man 
when  so  near  the  end  feels  this  more 
sensibly  than  he  does  at  an  earlier  peri- 
od. This  will  be  now  his  true,  his  only 
real  consolation— not  that  he  has  any 


140  LIFE   AT 

merit  of  bis  own;  not  tliat  lie  lias  per- 
formed any  works  of  righteousness  wliicli 
deserve  the  divine  favor;  not  that  he 
has  made  up  at  one  time  of  life,  or  in 
one  form  of  duty,  what  he  has  failed  to 
do  in  another ;  not  that  his  imperfec- 
tions have  been  so  trivial  or  unimpor- 
tant that   they  might  easily  be  over- 
looked by  a  just  God,   or  that   they 
would  not   in   themselves  exclude  him 
from  the  divine  favor ;  not  that  he  might 
hope  for  salvation  on  the  ground  of  his 
own    character,    notwithstanding    these 
imperfections:    no,   no,   none   of    these 
things.  No  well-founded  hope  of  heaven 
ever  rests  on  these  grounds.     It  is  only 
on  the  ground  that  our  sins,  and  imper- 
fections, and  errors,  have  not  been  so 
great,  as  they  could  not  be  so  great,  as 
to  make  it  impossible  to  be  saved  by 
the  mercy  of  God  through  the  atone- 


THllEESCOrwE   AND   TEN. 


141 


ment  of  Christ ;  that  the  merits  of  the 
Redeemer  are  above  all  the  demerits 
of  our  sins,  and  arc  ample  to  save  from 
those  sins  ;  that  the  provisions  for  par- 
don and  salvation  are  as  free  as  they 
are  ample — as  available  as  they  are  vast ; 
that  Christ  "  tasted  death  for  every  man  f 
that  the  offers  of  salvation  are  made 
to  one  as  well  as  to  another — made  so 
freely  to  all,  that ''  whosoever  will,'^  may 
come  and  ''take  the  water  of  life."  The 
hope  of  man,  of  any  and  of  every  man, 
in  my  sober  judgment,  and  I  would  utter 
it  with  all  the  solemnity  which  can  be 
derived  from  my  time  of  life,  and  from 
the  fact  that  I  am  not  far  from  the  grave, 
is  found  alone  in  "The  blood  of  Jesus 
Christ  which  cleanseth  from  all  sin." 

But  the  view  which  a  man  is  con- 
strained to  take  of  himself  as  a  sinner 
us  he  reviews  the  past,  need  not  prevent 


142  ^'^^  ^'^ 

Mm  from  cherishing  grateful  reflectim^ 
in  regard  to  his  general  course  of  We, 
or  from  finding  hapriness  in  the  con- 
sciousness that  he  has  aimed  to  do  r^ht, 
bowever  imperfectly  his  purposes  have 
been  carried  out.     It  was  not  in  a  spm 
of  boasting  or  self-righteousness  that  the 
apostle  Paul  referred  so  often  to  his 
own  upright  life  and  aims ;  it  was  not 
inconsistent  with  his  deep  and  perma- 
nent conviction  of  his  own  entire  desti- 
tution of  all  merit  as  a  ground  of  hope, 
that  he  referred  to  his  conscientious  en- 
deavors to  live  an  upright  life,  or  that 
he  commended  his  own  course   as  an 
example  to  others.    Paradoxical  as  i 
may  seem,  it  was  the  same  Paul  that 
said,  "I  know  that  in  me  [that  is,  m 
my  flesh]  dwelleth  no  good  thing.      O 
wretched  man  that  I  am '.who  shall  de- 
liver me  from  the  body  of  this  death . 


THREESCORE   AND   TEN.  143 

**God  forbid  that  I  should  glory  save 
in  the  cross  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ''— 
that  said  also,  elsewhere,  "I  hare  lived 
in  all  good  conscience  before  God  un- 
til this  day,''  Acts  23:1;   ^'We   have 
wronged  no  man,  we  have  corrupted  no 
man,  we  have  defrauded  no  man,"  2  Cor. 
7:2;  "Brethren,  be  followers  together 
of  me,  and  mark  them  which  walk  so 
as  ye  have  us  for  an  ensample,"  Phil. 
3:17;   "Ye   know  after  what  manner 
I  have  been  with  you  at  all  seasons, 
serving  the  Lord  with  all  humility  of 
mind   and    with   many   tears.      I   have 
kept  back  nothing  that  was  profitable 
unto  you,  and  have  taught  you  publicly 
and  from  house  to  house.     I  have  not 
shunned   to   declare   unto   you   all   the 
counsel   of  God.      I   have   coveted   no 
man's  silver,  or  gold,  or  apparel,"  Acts 
rh.  20,  and  that  said  of  himself  when 


i44  ^^^^  ^^ 

he  was  about  to  die,  "I  have   fougbt 
a  good  fight;  I  have  kept  the  faith," 

2  Tim.  4  :  7. 

Imperfect  as  the  life  of  any  maa  may 
have  been,  and  pained  as  he  may  be  in 
view  of  its  short-comings  and  faihires, 
yet  he  may  have  cheerful  recollections, 
and  may  find  happiness  in  reflecting 
that  he  has  been  engaged  in  a  righte- 
ous cause,  and  that  his  aim  has  been  to 
promote  the  welfare,  temporal  and  eter- 
nal, of  his  fellow-men. 

As  a  man  stands  on  the  verge  of  the 
grave,  and  looks  out  on  the  eternal 
world  now  very  near,  it  will  not  grieve 
him  to  reflect  that  he  has  sincerely  en- 
deavored to  live  a^ife  of  virtue,  tem- 
perance, justice,  and  charity;  that  he 
has  by  example  and  by  precept  com- 
mended to  the  world  a  way  of  living 
which  would   be   for  the   good  of  all; 


THREESCORE    AND   TEN. 


145 


that  he   has  endeavored   to   save  men 
from  ruin  by  bringing  before  their  minds 
the  way  of  salvation,  and  by  warning 
the  sinner  of  his  danger ;  that  he  has 
sought  to  acquaint  the  world  with  the 
doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul, 
and  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement  for 
sin,  and  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection 
of  the  dead,  and  to  inspire  men  with  the 
hope  of  a  better  life ;  that  he  has  sought 
to  make  all  men  better,  purer,  happier, 
and   to  diffuse  abroad   over  all  lands, 
faith  in  a  pure  religion.      It  will  be  a 
consolation  to  him  then  to  reflect  that 
he  has  not  sought  to  destroy  the  faith 
of  men  in  God,  in  the  Saviour,  in  the 
Bible,  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  in 
the  future  state ;  that  he  has  done  noth- 
ing to  counteract  the  efforts  of  parents 
to  train  up  their  children  in  the  ways  of 

virtue,   temperance,  and  pure  religion  ; 

10 


14G  Lli^li   AT 

that  he  has  endeavored  to  persuade  men 
to  love  their  country,  to  love  their  race, 
and  to  strive  to  promote  the  welfare  of 
the  whole  world,  irrespective  of  the  lim- 
its of  rank,  of  complexion,  or  of  geo- 
graphical boundaries. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  reflection  which 
men  have  when  they  come  to  review 
their  lives  in  the  prospect  of  the  eternal 
world.    The  one  arises  from  the  convic 
tion  of  their  own  minds  that  their  lives 
have  been  wasted ;  that  they  have  pros- 
tituted their  talents  for  purposes  of  evil ; 
that  they  have  lived  to  counteract  the 
efforts  of  the  friends  of  virtue  and  reli- 
gion, and  to  spread  error  and  delusion 
over  the  world  ;  that  they  have  by  their 
writings  or  their  lives  unsettled  the  faith 
of  men  in  God,  in  the  Bible,  in  the  Sav- 
iour,  in  the  hope  of  a  future  life ;  that 
they  have  lived  to  make  men  skeptics, 


THREESCORE    AND   TEN.  147 

and  to  fill  the  world  with  doubt  and  de- 
spair. The  other  arises  from  the  con- 
sciousness,  that,  however  imperfect  they 
may  have  been,  they  have  sought  to 
make  men  better,  purer,  happier  ;  to  hold 
before  the  guilty  and  dying  the  truth 
that  there  is  a  G-od  and  a  Saviour  ;  to 
show  to  all  that  there  is  something 
worth  living  for ;  to  light  up  hope,  and 
peace,  and  joy,  in  a  dark  world  of  sin 
and  sorrow. 

I  urge  now,  in  conclusion,  the  fact 
that  solemn  reflections  on  the  past  must 
occur  when  one  reaches  the  closing  scene 
of  life,  and  that  a  man  will  then  wish  to 
find  evidence  that  he  has  so  lived  as 
not  to  lead  others  astray  from  the  path 
of  virtue,  or  to  weaken  their  faith  in 
God,  or  to  destroy  their  hope  of  a  bet- 
ter life,  as  a  motive  addressed  to  the 
young,  and  to  all  classes  of  persons,  for 


148  THREESCORE   AND   TEN. 

lending  their  names  and  their  influence 
to  the  cause  of  virtue,  of  temperance,  of 
truth,  of  pure  religion.  No  man  regrets 
such  a  course  when  he  comes  to  die. 

My  life  has  been  a  favored  life.  I 
know  not  that  I  have  an  enemy  on  the 
earth — that  there  is  one  human  being 
that  wishes  me  ill.  I  am  certain  that  no 
wrong  has  been  done  to  me,  the  recol- 
lection of  which  I  desire  to  cherish,  or 
which  it  is  not  easy  to  forgive. 

"So  glide  my  life  away !    And  so,  at  last, 
My  share  of  duties  decently  fulfilled, 
May  some  disease,  not  tardy  to  perform 
Its  destined  office,  yet  with  gentle  stroke, 
Dismiss  me  weary  to  a  safe  retreat 
Beneath  the  turf  that  I  have  often  trod.** 


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!|.. 


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